Nagarjuna

Nagarjuna (150 AD - 250 AD) was an Indian philosopher and founder of the Madhyamaka school (middle path). His major contributions were the doctrine of emptiness which further explained the no-self teaching of Buddha and the two-truths doctrine of ultimate truth and conventional truth. Nagarjuna explained that all phenomena are without any own-nature or self-nature, and thus without any underlying essence, they are empty of being independent. Modern scientists would concur with this and have noticed the parallels in their findings and this teaching. Nagarjuna is especially venerated in the Mahayana, but since he did not teach on the bodhisattva ideal, many scholars now feel that he may have been a Theravadin.

References

Tricycle, The Buddhist Review, 2007.