Шығыс Азиядағы Мадхьямака мектебі

Buddhist tradition in East Asia which represents the Indian Madhyamaka

East Asian Madhyamaka is the Buddhist tradition in East Asia which represents the Indian Madhyamaka (Chung kuan) system of thought. In Chinese Buddhism, these are often referred to as the Sānlùn (Ch. 三論宗, Jp. Sanron, "Three Treatise") school, also known as the "emptiness school" (K'ung Tsung), although they may not have been an independent sect. The three principal texts of the school are the Middle Treatise (Zhong lun), the Twelve Gate Treatise (Shiermen lun), and the Hundred Treatise (Bai lun). They were first transmitted to China during the early 5th century by the Buddhist monk Kumārajīva (344−413) in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The school and its texts were later transmitted to Korea and Japan. The leading thinkers of this tradition are Kumārajīva's disciple Sēngzhào (Seng chao; 374−414), and the later Jízàng (Chi tsang; 549−623).

After Jízàng, the school declined considerably, though its texts remained influential for other traditions such as Tiantai and Chan Buddhism. In, Chan (Zen), Nagarjuna is seen as one of the patriarchs of the school and thus its key figures such as Huineng must have been familiar with the four treatises. According to Hsueh li Cheng, "Zen masters such as Niu t'ou fa yung (594–657) and Nan ch'uan P'u yuan (748–834) were San Iun Buddhists before they became Zen masters."

In the early part of the 20th century, the laymen Yang Wenhui and Ouyang Jian (Ch. 歐陽漸) (1871–1943) promoted Buddhist learning in China, and the general trend was for an increase in studies of Buddhist traditions such as Yogācāra, Madhyamaka, and the Huayan school. A major influential figure in the modern Chinese study of Madhyamaka is Yìnshùn (印順導師, 1906–2005). Yìnshùn applied his study of the Chinese Agamas to Madhyamaka, and argued that the works of Nagarjuna were "the inheritance of the conceptualisation of dependent arising as proposed in the Agamas". Yìnshùn saw the writings of Nagarjuna as the correct Buddhadharma while considering the writings of the Sānlùn school as being corrupted due to their synthesizing of the Tathagata garbha doctrine into Madhyamaka. While he was seen among his colleagues as a Sānlùn scholar, he himself did not claim such direct affiliation:Many modern Chinese Mādhyamaka scholars such as Li Zhifu, Yang Huinan and Lan Jifu have been students of Yìnshùn.

The school was known in Japan as Sanron (三論宗) and was introduced around 625 by the Korean Goguryeo monk Hyegwan (Jp. = Ekan 慧灌) who resided at Gangōji Temple. Prince Shōtoku is known to have had two Buddhist mentors from the Sanron school. Ekan is also known for introducing the Jōjitsu (Satyasiddhi) school to Japan and the Satyasiddhi system was taught as a supplement, together with Madhyamaka, in Japanese Sanron. During the Heian period, an important Sanron figure was master Chiko (709–781), whose commentary on the Heart Sutra became a classic work of Heian Buddhist scholarship and the most authoritative commentary on the Heart Sutra in the early Heian. This commentary criticized the Hosso (Yogacara) school's interpretation of the Heart Sutra, promoted the Heart Sutra as a text of definitive meaning (nītārtha) while also drawing on the work of Jizang. This school was later overshadowed by other Japanese schools such as Tendai and Zen.