| abstract | - Madhyamaka (Sanskrit: माध्यमक, Mādhyamaka, traditional Chinese: 中觀宗, Pinyin: Zhōngguānzōng; also known as Śunyavada) is a Buddhist Mahāyāna tradition systematized by Nāgārjuna. Nāgārjuna may have arrived at his positions from a desire to achieve a consistent exegesis of the Buddha's doctrine as recorded in the āgamas. In the eyes of Nāgārjuna the Buddha was not merely a forerunner, but the very founder of the Mādhyamaka system. The tradition and its subsidiaries are called "Mādhyamaka"; those who follow it are called "Mādhyamikas." According to the Mādhyamikas, all phenomena are empty of "self nature" or "essence" (Sanskrit: Svabhāva), meaning that they have no intrinsic, independent reality apart from the causes and conditions from which they arise. Mādhyamaka is the rejection of two extreme philosophies, and therefore represents the "middle way" between eternalism—the view that something is eternal and unchanging—and nihilism. Nihilism here means the assertion that all things are intrinsically already destroyed or rendered nonexistent. This is nihilism in the sense of Indian philosophy, and may differ somewhat from Western philosophical nihilism.
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