V. P. ANDROSOV. NAGARJUNA'S TEACHING ON THE MIDDLE WAY. Research. and translated from Skt. Mula-madhyamaka-karika); translated from Tib." Interpretation of the root stanzas on the middle Ground, [called] Fearless [refutation of dogmatic views]" ("Mula-madhyamaka-vritti Akutobhaya"). Moscow: Vostochnaya litra, 2006, 846 p.

The reviewed work is devoted to the study of the activities and legacy of the great Buddhist scholar of India of the II-III centuries, the founder of the Madhyamaka school of philosophy and, according to the author of the monograph, the entire Great Chariot of Buddhism. This work continues the author's research started and published in previous years (Nagarjuna and his Teaching, Moscow: GRVL, 1990; Nagarjuna's Buddhism: Religious and Philosophical Treatises, Moscow: Vostochnaya litra, 2001).

The article on the problems of translation of Buddhist canonical texts, which is an essential part of the introduction to the monograph, deserves attention. Undoubtedly, for V. P. Androsov, translation is a process of creative search. He tends to search for and offer his own translations of various fundamental Sanskrit and Tibetan terms, as well as use translation options that were often found in the late XIX - early XX centuries, but are almost not used by modern authors. In his work, there are such terms as" dharma-particle "(dharma, chos), " support as a condition "(alambana, dmigs pa), "self-existent existence" (dngos po mams kyi rang hzhin), "ticks that poison consciousness with poison" (klesa, nyon mongs), etc. You can agree with these translations or not, but in any case, the author's creative logic deserves attention. In an interview published in the journal "Dharma Life" (N 12, 2000), a well-known American orientalist, S. A. Abramovich. Batchelor remarked that the world needed poetic translations of the sutras instead of the bombastic texts sometimes found in the West. Indeed, the vast temporal and cultural differences that separate us from the traditions of the East are probably easier to overcome if we use the language that modern people are used to speaking and thinking in our translations.

The main part of the monograph consists of three parts. In the first, V. P. Androsov, drawing on an extensive source base, sets out the doctrinal foundations of the teachings of Buddha and Nagarjuna, and presents in detail the historiography of Nagarjuniana. In particular, the author's research on the probable existence of other Nagarjuna texts, which is often raised by various scholars, is very interesting. It is included in the section on the textual heritage of Nagarjuna and the problems of classification of his works.

The second part examines the origin of various translations and commentaries of the "Root Stanzas on the Middle", as well as describes the structure of the text itself; then the actual Russian translation of the "Stanzas" is presented, which deserves careful and unbiased study. The translation is also accompanied by Nagarjuna's first published auto-commentaries, as well as comments by Chandrakirti and some other Buddhist scholars in India, as well as contemporary Buddhologists, including V. P. Androsov himself. This classic text of Nagarjuna, in its most complete form, contains his view of so-called reality from the perspective of emptiness. According to Nagarjuna, everything is empty, i.e. it exists only depending on a set of conditions, without any eternal, unchanging essence. In addition, many of the madhyamaka statements indicate that all so-called entities lack a separate independent existence in the sense that they are only conceptual constructions of the mind. Any phenomenon is nothing more than a name or concept attributed to a certain set of conditions.

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The third part - "Appendices" - contains several translations of other important Buddhist texts. First of all, this is an annotated translation of the famous "Heart Sutra" about Cultivating Wisdom and Emptiness. This is followed by three translations of Stanzas on the Essence of Interdependent Origin, co-authored with O. E. Filippov.

The Bhava-Sankranti Sutra (translated as The Existence-Wandering Sutra) is a short sutra in which the Buddha explains to his royal disciple the emptiness and illusory nature of birth and death. It teaches that there is no such thing or phenomenon, an element of relative reality (translated as "dharmo particle") that passes from one life to another, and yet beings are reborn. In Nagarjuna's "Instruction" and "Treatise", the transition from one existence to another is explained in terms of voidness, as well as two truths - relative and absolute. According to relative truth, there are objects like people, chairs, or cats. From the standpoint of absolute truth, nothing has an independent existence or a stable, eternal self-existence. It is important to remember that these are exactly two truths, and it is not true that one of them is "truer" than the other.

Much later, in Indian and then Tibetan Diamond Chariot Buddhism, the teaching of "sankranti" (Tib. 'pho ba - phowa) appeared. This is the name, in particular, of one of the six yogas of the Indian mahasiddhi Naropa (X - XI centuries), brought to Tibet by the translator Marpa (XI century) and entered the tradition of the Kagyu school. This teaching (or similar ones) is transmitted by virtually all the lineage lines of Tibetan Buddhism. Also a teaching on the process of death, Naropa's phowa does not focus on its emptiness (which is already taken for granted), but offers a method of practice that allows you to transfer consciousness (empty of independent existence) to the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha (which also has no self-existence), which is not a place on earth or outside It is a state of mind free from all suffering.

"Stanzas on the essence of dependent origination" in a clear, concise form indicate the emptiness of successive links in the chain of causes and effects and the process of dependent origination itself. The stanzas are also accompanied by Nagarjuna's auto-commentary.

The last of the works of the great founder of Madhyamaka cited in the monograph, also related to his most important works, is "Sixty Stanzas on Arguments [of reason]". Here are many arguments in favor of the unreality of all things and, most importantly, the most important familiar concepts, such as samsara and nirvana, being and non-being, beginning and end.

The final part of the monograph is "Dictionary of Indo-Tibetan and Russian Buddhism (names, terms and doctrinal concepts)", which is based on the already known dictionaries of V. P. Androsov, but supplemented with new articles.

V. P. Androsov in his monumental work opens another veil over the treasury of ancient Buddhist wisdom. The work will be useful for both a specialist and just an inquisitive reader.

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