Introduction to the Middle Way (Madhyamakāvatāra)

A verse treatise with Candrakīrti's own commentary, written as an entry into, or supplement to, Nāgārjuna's Middle Way. Its chapters follow the ten stages (bhūmi) of the bodhisattva path, each matched to a perfection such as generosity, ethics and patience, and it opens with praise of compassion. The sixth chapter, on wisdom, takes up most of the work. There Candrakīrti argues that nothing arises from itself, from something other, from both or without a cause, and so nothing exists by its own nature. He sets out the two truths, conventional and ultimate, and attacks the Yogācāra view that only mind is real. The chapter also contains the sevenfold analysis of a chariot: the self, like the chariot, is neither the same as its parts nor different from them, nor their mere collection or shape, yet it can be named in dependence on them. The text became the main source for the Prāsaṅgika reading of Madhyamaka in Tibet.

It is the standard Tibetan entry point to Madhyamaka thought, and its analysis of the self as a dependent designation speaks directly to modern debates about personal identity.