In Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka, compassion (karuṇā) is not an optional ornament added to a philosophical system, but the living expression of insight into emptiness (śūnyatā). Emptiness means that all phenomena, including persons, lack inherent, independent existence and arise only in dependence on causes and conditions. When this is seen clearly, it does not lead to cold detachment; rather, it reveals how deeply beings are entangled in suffering through clinging to what they mistakenly take as inherently real. From this vision, compassion naturally and necessarily arises, because the distinction between self and other loses its rigidity, and the pain of others is no longer felt as something wholly separate. In this way, wisdom (prajñā) and compassion are inseparable: wisdom sees emptiness, and compassion is wisdom’s affective and ethical resonance.

This intimate link between emptiness and compassion is also articulated through the doctrine of the two truths. On the ultimate level (paramārtha-satya), all things, including the agent, the act, and the recipient of compassion, are empty of inherent existence. On the conventional level (saṃvṛti-satya), beings suffer in very real and pressing ways, and their suffering calls for a response. Compassion operates within this conventional domain as active concern and altruistic engagement, while remaining grounded in the ultimate understanding that nothing possesses fixed essence. This dual perspective allows compassionate activity to be vigorous and committed, yet free from clinging and reification.

Within the Mahāyāna framework associated with Nāgārjuna, this union of wisdom and compassion finds its paradigmatic expression in the bodhisattva ideal. The bodhisattva is moved by great compassion to seek awakening not merely for personal liberation, but for the sake of all sentient beings caught in saṃsāra. Compassion thus becomes both the motive force that sets one on the path and the ongoing orientation that shapes every stage of practice. Far from being a mere sentiment, it is the dynamic energy that translates the realization of emptiness into concrete efforts to alleviate suffering.

Compassion also functions as a safeguard in Nāgārjuna’s thought, protecting the teaching of emptiness from sliding into nihilism or rigid dogmatism. Without compassion, emptiness could be misconstrued as a denial of value, meaning, or moral responsibility, leading to apathy. With compassion, the insight into emptiness is continually directed toward the well-being of beings, ensuring that philosophical subtlety does not degenerate into detached intellectualism. At the same time, compassion discourages clinging to fixed views, since such clinging harms both oneself and others. Even Nāgārjuna’s dialectical method can be understood as a skillful means (upāya), employed out of compassion to free beings from the suffering that arises through attachment to mistaken conceptions.