Mādhyamaka, otherwise known as Śūnyavāda and Niḥsvabhāvavāda, refers to a tradition of Buddhist philosophy and practice founded by the Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher Nāgārjuna. The foundational text of the Mādhyamaka tradition is Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. More broadly, Mādhyamaka also refers to the ultimate nature of phenomena as well as the non-conceptual realization of ultimate reality that is experienced in meditation.
Nāgārjuna (right) and Āryadeva (middle).
Kamalashila
Thangkha with Jonang lama Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (1292–1361)
Tsongkhapa
Śūnyatā, translated most often as "emptiness", "vacuity", and sometimes "voidness", or "nothingness" is an Indian philosophical concept. In Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and other philosophical strands, the concept has multiple meanings depending on its doctrinal context. It is either an ontological feature of reality, a meditative state, or a phenomenological analysis of experience.
A simile from the Pali scriptures (SN 22.95) compares form and feelings with foam and bubbles.
Sea froth at sunset
In the Prajñaparamita sutras, the emptiness of phenomena is often illustrated by metaphors like drops of dew.
Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva, two classic Indian philosophers of the Buddhist emptiness doctrine