“I find it fascinating, what the Tibetans did with Buddhism. I think it is utterly remarkable, and also admirable. It’s not purely historical. Although they were the world’s first Indologists, as I once wrote, a slight exaggeration in the least. 

They completely absorbed Indian texts. For instance, there is Tsongkhapa, who never went to India, others did, of course, but he never went, yet he has a view for understanding the problems of the Madhyamaka, but from his time. In other words, a much more advanced form of Madhyamaka that was actually attested, explicitly in India. It’s potentially, I think, in Nāgārjuna, and even in Chandrakīrti, but above all in Nāgārjuna. I feel, in a way, he was very faithful to Nāgārjuna….” -David Seyfort Ruegg, from Oral History of Tibetan Studies. 2021. “An Interview with David Seyfort Ruegg.” December 2. (oralhistory.iats.info)

Papers by Topic 

Buddhism and Truth 

Cabezón, José Ignacio. 1981. “The Concepts of Truth and Meaning in the Buddhist Scriptures.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 4 (1): 7-23. (JIABS)

Svatantrika Madhyamaka 

Tillemans, Tom. 2004. “What are Madhyamikas Refuting? Santaraksita, Kamalasila et alii on Superimpositions (samaropa).” In Three Mountains and Seven Rivers: Prof. Musashi Tachikawa’s Felicitation Volume, edited by Shoun Hino, Toshihiro Wada (ed. T. Wada). (academia.edu)

Prasangika Madhyamaka 

Ames, William L. 1982. “The Notion of ‘Svabhāva’ in the Thought of Candrakīrti.” Journal of Indian Philosophy, 10 (2): 161–77. (JSTOR)

Ames, William L. 1986. “Buddhapālita’s Exposition of the Madhyamaka.” Journal of Indian Philosophy, 14 (4): 313–48. (JSTOR)  

Garfield, Jay L. 1994. “Dependent Arising and the Emptiness of Emptiness: Why Did Nāgārjuna  Start with Causation?” Philosophy East and West, 44 (2): 219. (JSTOR)  

Lopez, Donald S. 1988. “Do ‘Śrāvakas’ Understand Emptiness?” Journal of Indian Philosophy, 16 (1): 65–105. (JSTOR)

Madhyamaka in Gelug   

Hopkins, Jeffery. 1989. “A Tibetan Delineation of Different Views of Emptiness in the Indian Middle Way School.” The Tibet Journal, 14 (1): 10–43. (JSTOR)

Lopez, Donald S. 1989. “On the Relationships of Emptiness and Dependent Arising: Some dGe-lugs-pa Views.” The Tibet Journal, 14 (1): 44–69. (JSTOR)

Williams, Paul. 1989. “Introduction – Some Random Reflections on the Study of Tibetan Madhyamaka.” The Tibet Journal, 14 (1): 1–9. (JSTOR)

Tsong-kha-pa and Madhyamaka 

Hopkins, Jeffrey. 1992. “A Tibetan Contribution on the Question of Mind-only in the Early Yogic Practice School.” Journal of Indian Philosophy, 20, no. 3: 275–343. (JSTOR)

Thupten Jinpa. 1998. “Delineating Reason’s Scope for Negation Tsongkhapa’s Contribution to Madhyamaka’s Dialectical Method.” Journal of Indian Philosophy, 26, no. 4: 275–308. (JSTOR)

Thupten Jinpa. 1999. “Tsongkhapa’s Qualms about Early Tibetan Interpretations of Madhyamaka Philosophy.” The Tibet Journal, 24, no. 2: 3–28. (JSTOR)

Madhyamaka and Yogacara

Garfield, Jay L, and Jan Westerhoff. 2015. Madhyamaka and YogYogācāra: Allies or Rivals? Oxford University Press. (archive.org)

Nagao, Gadjin, and Leslie S Kawamura. 1991. Mādhyamika and Yogācāra: A Study of Mahāyāna Philosophies: Collected Papers of G.M. Nagao. State Univ. of New York Press. (BQ 7462 .N3313 1991 JABL)

Collective Volumes on Contemporary Scholarship on Madhyamaka  

Cowherds (Authors). 2011. Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press. (BQ 4255 .C69 2011 JABL)

Ruegg David Seyfort. 2010. The Buddhist Philosophy of the Middle: Essays on Indian and Tibetan Madhyamaka. Boston: Wisdom Publications. (BQ 7457 .R835 2010 JABL

Dreyfus, Georges B. J., and Sara L. McClintock. 2014. The Svatantrika-Prasangika Distinction: What Difference Does a Difference Make? Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications. (BQ 7478 .S73 2003  JABL

Yakherds. 2021. Knowing Illusion: Bringing a Tibetan Debate into Contemporary Discourse. New York NY: Oxford University Press. (BQ 4440 .K66 2021 v1, BQ 4440 .K66 2021 v2 JABL)

Noted Scholars in Madhyamaka Philosophy  

Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama XIV

  • Bstan-ʼdzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV, and Thupten Jinpa. 2005. Essence of the Heart Sutra: The Dalai Lama’s Heart of Wisdom Teachings. Wisdom Publications. (BQ 1967 .B78 2005 JABL) [commentary on the Heart Sutra]
  • ———. 2009. The Middle Way: Faith Grounded in Reason. Wisdom Publications. (BQ 7462 .B79 2009 JABL) [commentary to Mulamadhymakakarika chapters 18, 24, & 26]
  • ———. 2012. Practicing Wisdom: The Perfection of Shantideva’s Bodhisattva Way. Wisdom Publications. (BQ 3147 .B777 2004 JABL) [commentary on the Wisdom chapter (ch. 9) of Shantideva’s Way of the Bodhisattva]
  • Bstan-ʼdzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV, Thupten Jinpa, Rebecca McClen Novick, and Nicholas Ribush. 2002. Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment. Thubten Dhargye Ling Publications. (BQ 7950 .A874 B62332 2002 JABL) (archive.org) [commentary on Atīśa’s Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment and Tsong-kha-pa’s Lines of Experience]

David Seyfort Ruegg

  • Oral History of Tibetan Studies. 2021. “An Interview with David Seyfort Ruegg.” (oralhistory.iats.info)
  • Ruegg, David Seyfort. [n.d.] “Complete bibliography of David Seyfort Ruegg with Curriculum Vitae.” (academia.edu)

Tom Tillemans

Jan Westerhoff

  • Westerhoff, Jan. 2018. The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy. Oxford University Press. (B 162 .W47 2018 JABL)

William Ames
Kamaleswar Bhattacharya
James A. Blumenthal
José Ignacio Cabezón
Louis de la Vallée-Poussi
Georges Dreyfus
Malcolm Eckel
Jay Garfield
C.W. Huntington
Roger Jackson
Thupten Jinpa
Karen Lang
Donald Lopez
William Magee
Anne MacDonald
Sara McClintock
T.R.V Murti
Guy Newland
Claus Oetke
Graham Priest
Mark Siderits 
Gareth Sparham
Robert Thurman
Sonam Thakchoe
Jan Westerhoff
Paul Williams