Nagarjuna’s thought is woven around the insight of śūnyatā, or emptiness, which he makes the very heart of the Madhyamaka vision. Emptiness, in this context, does not mean sheer non-existence, but the absence of inherent, independent essence (svabhāva) in all phenomena. Everything that appears does so only through dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda): arising in reliance on causes, conditions, parts, and conceptual designation. Because phenomena are dependently arisen, they cannot be self-sufficient or unchanging, and this very lack of inherent nature is what is meant by śūnyatā. Thus, emptiness and dependent origination are two ways of describing the same dynamic: the relational, conditioned character of all things.

On this basis, Nagarjuna presents śūnyatā as the Middle Way between two extremes. Against eternalism, he denies any fixed, self-existing entities; against nihilism, he does not deny the conventional, functional reality of the world. Phenomena exist conventionally, as part of a web of interdependence, yet ultimately they are empty of any independent core. This is clarified through the doctrine of the two truths: conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya), which concerns how things appear and operate in everyday experience, and ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya), which is the emptiness of all phenomena. These are not two separate worlds, but two perspectives on the same dependently arisen reality.

Nagarjuna’s major work, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, systematically applies this understanding of emptiness to all key categories: causation, motion, the self, saṃsāra and nirvāṇa alike. Through rigorous analysis, it dismantles essentialist views by exposing their internal contradictions and showing that any claim to inherent existence cannot withstand careful scrutiny. Even emptiness itself is not to be grasped as some new metaphysical substance; it too is empty, and reifying it would simply recreate the very attachment it is meant to dissolve. In this way, śūnyatā functions as a tool for cutting through all rigid conceptual constructions (prapañca), rather than as a doctrine to cling to.

The relationship between śūnyatā and liberation is central to Nagarjuna’s teaching. Clinging and aversion arise from taking things—including the self and even nirvāṇa—to possess inherent existence. When the emptiness of all phenomena is deeply understood, the basis for such grasping falls away, and with it the suffering that depends on that grasping. Śūnyatā is therefore not merely a philosophical thesis but a transformative insight: the fundamental vision that underlies both an accurate understanding of reality and the path to freedom from suffering.