Acharya Nagarjuna

Acharya Nagarjuna, who lived in the present day Andhra Pradesh / Vidarbha region in 2nd Century AD, and a renowned philosopher, mathematician and alchemist, was thought to have born in Andhra Desa, at Vedali. He was a leader with profound spiritual insights and propounded the Madhyamika ( the "Middle Path" ) philosophy and wrote the treatise Pratitya Mulamadhyamika Karika. He described the concept of Sunyata or "Emptiness".

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Legend reports that, in the second or third century C.E., a young Brahmin named Nagarjuna mastered the Vedas and all of the existing Hindu sciences, including magic, while still a young boy. When he was a teenager he used his magical abilities to render himself and two of his friends invisible so that they might slip unnoticed into the royal harem of the local king's palace. They took advantage of the situation and then made their escape. On attempting to leave, however, his friends neglected to make them sufficiently invisible and were caught and executed. Nagarjuna escaped, but this experience caused him to reevaluate the desires which had caused him to come so close to peril.

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Inspired by this episode, Nagarjuna entered a Buddhist monastery. In a mere ninety days he studied and mastered the whole of the Pali canon, the early writings of Buddhism. He left the monastery in search of more advanced teachings of the Buddha that he felt sure must exist. One day he was expounding upon the doctrine of the Buddha to a group of listeners and noticed that, following the lecture, two members of the audience disappeared into the ground. He followed them to what proved to be their home, the kingdom of the Nagas, a land inhabited by beneficent, half-divine, serpent- like beings. Here the Nagas presented Nagarjuna with occult teachings and with several volumes of sutras, canonical scriptures. These writings were the Prajnaparamitas, the "Perfection of Wisdom" sutras. The Buddha had delivered these sacred teachings centuries before but had decided that they were too profound for his contemporaries. He arranged to have them hidden for safekeeping in the nether world until humankind had acquired the necessary sophistication and spiritual development to allow them to appreciate these teachings of "perfect wisdom." Now that the world was ready, Nagarjuna was permitted to spread the Buddha’s final teachings. more info at : http://bahai-library.com/personal/jw/other.pubs/nagarjuna/http://www.niharonline.com/culture/tourism/cul_tour_sagar.php

There is a lot to learn from Buddism. From outside it looks very tough. U have to follow the 8 rules (Asthaanga Maarga). And it may sound tough when it comes to samyakriya, samyak drushti and Smruthi pathaana (Smruthupastaana) etc. There is a real clue, i mean, how all the 8 steps can be worked in one shot. You can have a read at this book, It looks to me thats how one has to ride in Buddism. It looked simple as it is.The book is, Buddha Dhyana Hrudayam.http://www.saimaster.com/Books/Readbook.asp?PNo=BD0000The essensce of the Book can be find here,http://p4.forumforfree.com/viewtopic.php?p=916&sid=6c1b64fcdcea9b1725b335363d1fb574&mforum=saimaster