In the Mūla-madhyāmaka-kārika, one of the most important surviving Buddhist texts, Nāgārjuna establishes the emptiness as the true nature of reality from the 2nd century CE: not as "nothingness" (abbava) but - if we accept that nothing exists permanently, independently, and from the beginning - as a liberating concept that encompasses and permeates everything beyond existence and non-existence, beyond essence and the self.

Thus intending to dismantle misconceptions (vilkalpa) and to encourage the abandonment of all views, Nāgārjuna, "the second Buddha" for much of the Buddhist tradition, adopts an impressive anti-metaphysical and anti-scientific philosophical stance that would forever transform Buddhist teaching and fuel the thoughts of leading Western thinkers many centuries later.

According to the myth, Nāgārjuna was invited to the bottom of the ocean, to the realm of reptiles, from where he retrieved the literary wisdom of the tradition to return it to the world and take his name, which means "noble reptile".

Few things are known about the life of Nāgārjuna (c. 150-250 CE), "heir" to the Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition and founder of the Madhyamaka (middle way) school. Nāgārjuna wrote in Sanskrit and in his work Mūla-madhyāmaka-kārika he introduced the concept of emptiness (śūnyatā), directing Buddhist thought towards an entirely new direction.