“Nāgārjuna’s Seventy Stanzas: A Buddhist Psychology of Emptiness” — Komito, David Ross; Sonam Rinchen, Geshe, 1987. The title page reads: “Translation and commentary on the Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness by Venerable Geshe Sonam Rinchen, Venerable Tenzin Dorjee, and David Ross Komito” (Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, 1987).
Thesis / main argument
A complete English translation of Nāgārjuna’s Śūnyatāsaptati (Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness; sTong pa nyid bdun cu pa), with a verse-by-verse commentary by Geshe Sonam Rinchen, a scholar trained at Sera Monastery in Lhasa and working at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala. The three translators made the translation there in 1982 and 1983; Komito edited the oral commentary into prose (pp. 11–12, 182). Komito frames the whole, editorially, as a “Buddhist psychology of emptiness.” Because no Sanskrit survives, the translation works from the Tibetan (Peking #5227 and sDe dge #3827, amended against Candrakīrti’s Śūnyatāsaptativṛtti; p. 96). By the translators’ account it follows primarily the traditions of Sera Monastery and Candrakīrti’s Śūnyatāsaptativṛtti, and secondarily Parahita’s commentary (p. 182). Komito’s frame places the Śūnyatāsaptati inside a broader Geluk pedagogical structure that treats three things as divisions of one explanatory project: object (the Seventy Stanzas itself), subject (Asaṅga’s Abhidharmasamuccaya-derived treatises and Geluk meditation manuals) and perception (Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika-derived treatises) (p. 22).
How the translation marks its additions. Because the stanzas are terse, the translators added English words “which are not found in the original text but do reflect the meaning of Nāgārjuna, at least as the Tibetans interpret Nāgārjuna” (p. 13). In section 2-2, where each stanza is printed with its Tibetan text and the commentary, italic words correspond to Tibetan words that appear in the root stanzas; roman words are interpolations “based on the commentaries and on oral tradition” (p. 182). -1 (pp. 79–95) prints the stanzas without italics. Every verse quoted from this translation therefore carries two voices, Nāgārjuna’s and his Geluk interpreters’, and only the italics of section 2-2 tell them apart. In the quotations on this page, italics reproduce the translation’s own.
The text’s own doctrinal payload is a sustained working-out, across 73 short verses, of what dependent origination implies for the question of how things exist. It concentrates on the same arising-enduring-disintegrating problematic that opens the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. At v. 44 the root says that the Buddha speaks of “existence”, “non-existence” and both through his intention (དགོངས་པ་), and that this is hard to understand. The translation adds, in roman, that this intention is the two truths. That identification belongs to the commentaries. Nāgārjuna’s own statement that the two truths are the key to the Buddha’s teaching is MMK 24:8–9.
The text is the fourth member of the Tibetan Yukti-corpus (rigs pa’i tshogs drug), alongside MMK, VV, VP, Yuktiṣaṣṭikā, and Ratnāvalī. It is cross-referenced in the VV Yukti-corpus list and on the Nāgārjuna scholar page.
Key claims
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Stanza 44: the Buddha speaks through intention. “Whatever is said by the Buddha has the two truths as its chief underlying thought; it is hard to understand and must be interpreted in this light” (p. 156). The italic words render the root: the Buddha’s sayings “existence”, “non-existence” and “existence-and-non-existence” are spoken through his intention, and this is hard to understand (the translators’ note gives the literal sense as “not easily understood”). The roman words are interpolations: “has the two truths as its”, “must be interpreted in this light”, and the glosses that follow, which match “existence” with conventional existence, “non-existence” with non-inherent existence, and the pair with both “as a mere object of examination”. The verse thus states a hermeneutic of intention: the Buddha’s language of existence and non-existence carries an intended sense that is not on its surface. It does not name the two truths. The commentaries make that join. Mabja reports how “the learned followers of noble Nāgārjuna” reconcile the first turning’s “exist” with the second’s “nonexistent”: the first is said “in consideration of the relative, deluded perspective”, the second “accords with the ultimate, rational perspective” (mabja-ornament-of-reason, Preliminary Discussion). Candrakīrti says Nāgārjuna composed the MMK because “he wanted to demonstrate the proper distinction” between sūtras of provisional and of definitive meaning (sprung-lucid-exposition-1979, p. 44). Gorampa, commenting on the Madhyamakāvatāra, speaks of “this supreme system, which by way of the two truths differentiates between the interpretable and the definitive” (gorampa-removal-wrong-views, p. 228).
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Stanza 1: the Buddha’s terms are conventional. “‘Arising,’ ‘enduring,’ and ‘disintegrating;’ ‘existing’ and ‘non-existing;’ ‘inferior,’ ‘middling,’ and ‘superior’ do not have true existence. These terms are used by the Buddha in accordance with worldly conventions” (p. 97). The words that carry the point are root: the Buddha used these terms in accordance with worldly conventions, not as having true existence. The opening stanza already sets conventional usage against what is true, the contrast that v. 44’s commentators later generalise.
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Stanzas 15–22: the nihilism objection and the reply. In root words, the objection at v. 15 runs: if phenomena do not exist inherently, how can there be inferior, middling and superior, or different beings, and how can a result arise from causes (pp. 121–122)? At v. 18: if phenomena are devoid of intrinsic nature (རང་བཞིན་), there can be no occurrence of arising or cessation (p. 125). The opponents’ labels (“Vaibhāṣika” at v. 15, “Hīnayānist” at v. 18), the gloss “then you are asserting that they don’t exist at all”, and the comparison with “the horns of a rabbit” are roman: the translators’ additions from the commentaries. The reply (vv. 16–17, 19–22) turns on dependence: if phenomena existed inherently, “they do not originate in dependence” (v. 16, p. 122). V. 21 names the two extremes: “If a phenomenon were to exist inherently it should be permanent. If a phenomenon were to disintegrate completely then you must accept the annihilationist view” (p. 128; “disintegrate completely” renders a word meaning “not exist”, per the translators’ note). Like MMK 24:1–6, the text answers the charge that emptiness destroys arising and cessation.
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Stanzas 40–42: emanations and mere designation. In the root, the Tathāgata’s emanation and the emanation’s emanation, “both of them”, “exist through terms”, and “They” exist “merely through imputation by thought” (p. 153). V. 42 likens the agent to the first emanation and the action to the second; all of them are “devoid of inherent existence”, though “they do have a slight existence as mere imputations supported by terms and concepts” (p. 154). The sentence often quoted from v. 40–41, that saying the two emanations do not exist inherently “does not mean that they are completely non-existent”, is roman: the translators’ clarification, not the verse. The positive content stands in the root all the same: things exist as designations by terms and thought (cf. MMK 17, MMK 23, BCA 9).
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Stanzas 67–71: emptiness, dependent arising and fear. The commentary notes that v. 67 is missing from both Candrakīrti’s and Parahita’s commentaries, “suggesting that it may be an interpolation” (p. 177). V. 68 reads: “Because all things are empty of inherent existence the Peerless Tathāgata has shown the emptiness of inherent existence of dependent arising as the reality of all things” (p. 177). In the root, then, the Tathāgata taught dependent arising because all things are empty; the identification of the two (“the emptiness of inherent existence of … as the reality”) is roman. In v. 70 the root says that “the Buddha has never actually shown anything with true existence”, and that “Those who do not understand what is explained by the Tathāgata” “are frightened by this teaching”. The words describing what the Tathāgata explained, “to be conventionally existent and empty of the sign of true existence”, are roman (p. 179). V. 71’s root says that statements in “the way of the world”, such as “this arises in dependence on that”, “are not refuted”, and that “whatsoever arises dependently does not exist inherently”; it then asks “how can that” … “have” … “existence?” (p. 180). The words that make “that” refer to “non-inherent existence itself”, and so turn the verse into a statement of the emptiness of emptiness, are roman. Geshe Sonam Rinchen’s commentary draws that link: “In another context this is known as the emptiness of emptiness” (p. 180). As root text, v. 70 gives the fright motif and v. 71 the absence of intrinsic nature in what arises dependently; the emptiness-of-emptiness reading of v. 71 is the commentary’s.
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Stanza 11: no valid cognition in the root. The translation says that because ignorance and karmic formations are interrelated as cause and effect, “these two … are known by a valid cognizer not to exist inherently” (pp. 115–116). Although the English is italic, the Tibetan line printed with it reads རང་བཞིན་གྱིས་ནི་མ་གྲུབ་ཡིན་ (“are not established by intrinsic nature”), and the translators’ note gives the words rendered as “not established” (མ་གྲུབ་ཡིན་). The root has no word for valid cognition (ཚད་མ་, pramāṇa). “Known by a valid cognizer” is the translation’s expansion of “established” (གྲུབ་པ་). What the verse argues is that ignorance and karmic formations, being mutually cause and effect, are not established by intrinsic nature.
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Stanzas 4–6 — the four-cornered cause-and-result analysis (cf. MMK 1). The text reproduces the standard MMK 1.1 four-corner negation in compressed form: results that already exist in the cause cannot arise, results that do not exist in the cause cannot arise, results both existing and not existing in the cause are contradictory. Bears directly on Buddhapālita’s prasaṅga-only method (coghlan-buddhapalita-2021).
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Stanzas 33–43 — karman without svabhāva. A self-contained sequence on action, agent, and result: actions do not exist inherently, but precisely because of this they are not wasted and bear fruit. V. 38 runs from the absence of actions to the absence of an agent, a result and an experiencer, and concludes that “phenomena are devoid” (p. 150). The qualifier “inherent” throughout the English (“When actions do not have inherent existence …”) is roman. Read with vv. 40–42, where things exist “through terms” and “merely through imputation by thought”, the sequence answers the objection that emptiness destroys ethics.
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The opponent identifications. The root verses name no opponent. Following the commentaries, the translation labels the objector “Vaibhāṣika” at v. 15 and “Hīnayānist” at v. 18 (pp. 121, 125). On that identification the text sits in an intra-Buddhist register, with no Naiyāyika engagement of the kind found in VV vv. 30–51 and the VP; the identification itself is the commentators’.
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The colophon. The colophon ascribes the text to Ārya Nāgārjuna and says it was written out from the translations of Gzhon nu mchog, Gnyan Dharma grags and Khu (p. 182). Authenticity is not internally disputed in this text.
Methodology
Komito 1987 is a translation-with-commentary book, not a stand-alone academic argument. Three layers are present: (i) Nāgārjuna’s root verses, rendered from the Tibetan with no Sanskrit reconstruction, and with the translators’ interpolations set in roman type in section 2-2 (pp. 13, 182); (ii) Geshe Sonam Rinchen’s verse-by-verse Geluk-school commentary, transmitted orally and edited into prose by Komito; (iii) Komito’s editorial introduction situating the text within an Asaṅga/Dharmakīrti-framed Geluk pedagogical scheme.
The Geluk lens is explicit and unconcealed. The commentary identifies the object of negation as bden grub (inherent existence) and reads the Two Truths in Tsongkhapa’s “two natures of a single entity” register. The English carries the vocabulary of valid cognition into v. 11, where the root says only “not established”. At v. 47 the phrase “by the mind” renders “from a mark” (རྟགས་, the translators’ note), and the verse denies that such a mark, arisen from causes and conditions, can prove the inherent existence of form (p. 159). Komito is transparent about the lineage: Geshe Sonam Rinchen followed the Prāsaṅgika interpretation of Candrakīrti favoured by Tsong kha pa, and Komito’s own exposition depends on Geluk teachers (Preface, pp. 12–13; General Comments, p. 22). The commentary therefore gives a representative Geluk gloss, and the italics are what allow the root verses to be read against other commentarial frameworks.
Notable quotes
English words “which are not found in the original text but do reflect the meaning of Nāgārjuna, at least as the Tibetans interpret Nāgārjuna.” — the translators on their method (p. 13)
Connections
- Supports framework-absence-yields-nihilism (vv. 15–22 and 70: the root anticipates the charge that emptiness is nihilism; the two-truths reading of v. 44 is the commentators’)
- Engages kalupahana-vs-buddhapalita-and-vv (a further Yukti-corpus text that a Kaccāyanagotta-only reading has to accommodate)
- Engages westerhoff-vigrahavyavartani-2010 (companion Yukti-corpus text)
- Engages westerhoff-vaidalyaprakarana-2018 (Yukti-corpus partner; on the commentary’s identification of the objectors, the Śūnyatāsaptati is intra-Buddhist and the VP Naiyāyika)
- Engages coghlan-buddhapalita-2021 (Buddhapālita’s prasaṅga method, exemplified in compressed form at Śūnyatāsaptati vv. 4–6)
- Engages kalupahana-mmk-1986 (Kalupahana’s Tripiṭaka-only reading of Nāgārjuna has to account for this text as well as the MMK)
- Engages burton-emptiness-appraised-1999 (vv. 40–42, where things exist “through terms”, answer the equation of “no inherent existence” with “no existence” that drives Burton’s regress)
- Engages siderits-reality-altruism-2000 (Williams reads the absence of intrinsic nature as nihilism; the root answers with vv. 40–42 and 70, while the explicit two-truths reply in the English of v. 44 is interpolated)
Italics audit of the verses the wiki cites (2026-10-11)
Read from the scanned edition (book page = PDF page index + 2). “Root” = italic in the translation; “added” = roman.
| Verse | Page | What the root (italic) words carry | What is added (roman) | Effect on wiki claims |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 97 | the eight terms; “do not have true”; “terms”; “by the Buddha in accordance with worldly conventions" | "existence”, “These”, “are used” | claim survives |
| 11 | 115–116 | italic “are known by a valid cognizer not to exist inherently”, but the Tibetan is རང་བཞིན་གྱིས་ནི་མ་གྲུབ་ཡིན་ and the note gives མ་གྲུབ་ཡིན་ | — | “pramāṇa invoked (Tib. ཚད་མ་)” fails: no ཚད་མ་ in the root |
| 15 | 121–122 | if phenomena don’t exist inherently, how inferior / middling / superior, different beings, the manifestation of a result from causes | ”Vaibhāṣika:”; “then you are asserting that they don’t exist at all” | named opponent and the explicit “don’t exist at all” charge are added |
| 16 | 122–123 | phenomena exist inherently → they do not originate in dependence; no inherent existence for functional or non-functional phenomena | ”and thus that phenomena actually do not exist”; the three-times argument | inversion of the charge partly added |
| 18 | 125 | if phenomena are devoid … then no occurrence of arising or cessation; how devoid of inherent existence? | ”Hīnayānist:”; “they will be completely non-existent like the horns of a rabbit”; “As Buddha has spoken about” | named opponent and rabbit-horn image are added |
| 21 | 128–129 | if … to exist … permanent; if … to disintegrate completely (lit. “not exist”, note 1) then … must accept … annihilationist view; therefore … should not assert … phenomenon | ”inherently” (both times); “has inherent existence” | naming of the two extremes survives |
| 22 | 130 | opponent’s continuity reply and the answer | ”Opponent:”, “Reply:“ | — |
| 38 | 150 | no action → no agent → no result → no experiencer → phenomena devoid | ”inherent”, “inherently”; “physically and mentally” | quote must mark “inherent” as added |
| 40–41 | 152–153 | Tathāgata’s emanation and its emanation; “both of them”; “exist through terms”; “They”; “merely through imputation by thought” (Tib. མིང་ཙམ་ཡོད་, རྟོག་པ་ཙམ་) | “When we say that these two emanations do not exist inherently, that does not mean that they are completely non-existent but rather that”; “because they are separated from the nature of inherent existence” | denial of “completely non-existent” is added; positive content survives |
| 42 | 154 | agent like the emanation, action like the emanation’s emanation; devoid of inherent existence; slight existence as mere … concepts | ”because he is led by ignorance”; “imputations supported by terms and” | survives |
| 44 | 156 | said by the Buddha; chief underlying thought (དགོངས་པ་); hard to understand (note 4: “not easily understood”); says “existence” / “non-existence” / “existence-and-non-existence" | "has the two truths as its”; “must be interpreted in this light”; all three glosses | two-truths declaration is added; hermeneutic of intention survives |
| 47 | 159 | not apprehended → does not exist; if said [known] “by the mind” (note 3: lit. “from a mark”, རྟགས་ལས་), such a [mark] arisen from causes cannot prove | ”as inherently existing”; “the inherent existence of a form” | not a positive use of pramāṇa vocabulary |
| 66 | 176 | the similes (gandharva city, illusion, hair net, foam, bubble, emanation, dream, firebrand) | “Produced phenomena are similar to” partly | survives |
| 67 | 177 | nothing exists inherently; even non-functional things do not exist; functional and non-functional things are empty | ”There is”, “Therefore”, “of inherent existence” | commentary: v. 67 is missing from Candrakīrti’s and Parahita’s commentaries and “may be an interpolation” |
| 68 | 177 | because all things are empty of inherent existence the Peerless Tathāgata has shown … dependent arising … of all things | ”the emptiness of inherent existence of”; “as the reality” | identification of emptiness with dependent arising is added |
| 70 | 179 | shown … to the world … without disintegration, but … never … shown … with true existence; those who do not understand what is explained by the Tathāgata … are frightened by this teaching | ”conventionally”; “to be conventionally existent and empty of the sign of true existence” | fright motif survives; the conventional / non-inherent gloss is added |
| 71 | 180 | way of the world “this arises in dependence on that”; such statements are not refuted; whatsoever … dependently does not exist inherently; how can that … have … existence? In fact, … must definitely | ”non-inherent existence itself”; “that non-inherent existence”; “not exist inherently!“ | emptiness-of-emptiness reading is added (commentary, p. 180) |
| 73 | 181 | by seeing these … from … conditions … eliminate the whole network of wrong views; abandoned attachment, closed-mindedness and hatred; attain nirvāṇa unstained | ”internal and external phenomena arising”; “With the elimination of wrong views” | no wiki claim affected |