The undoubted works of Asvaghosha treat the Buddha with ornate but grave rhetoric as the hero of an epic.  His progress is attended by miracles such as Indian taste demands, but they hardly exceed the marvels recounted in the Pali scriptures and there is no sign that the hero is identified, as in the Ramayana of Tulsi Das or the Gospel according to St. John, with the divine spirit.  The poet clearly feels personal devotion to a Saviour.  He dwells on the duty of teaching others and not selfishly seeking one’s own salvation, but he does not formulate dogmas.

The name most definitely connected with the early promulgation of Mahayanism is Nagarjuna.[209] A preponderance of Chinese tradition makes him the second patriarch after Asvaghosha[210] and this agrees with the Kashmir chronicle which implies that he lived soon after Kanishka.[211] He probably flourished in the latter half of the second century.  But his biographies extant in Chinese and Tibetan are almost wholly mythical, even crediting him with a life of several centuries, and the most that can be hoped is to extract a few grains of history from them.  He is said to have been by birth a Brahman of Vidarbha (Berar) and to have had as teacher a Sudra named Saraha or Rahulabhadra.  When the legend states that he visited the Nagas in the depths of the sea and obtained books from them, it seems to admit that he preached new doctrines.  It is noticeable that he is represented not only as a philosopher but as a great magician, builder, physician, and maker of images.

Many works are attributed to him but they have not the same authenticity as the poems of Asvaghosha.  Some schools make him the author of the Prajna-paramita but it is more usually regarded as a revelation.  The commentary on it known as Maha-prajna-paramita-sastra is generally accepted as his work.  A consensus of tradition makes him the author of the Madhyamika[212] aphorisms of which some account has been given above.  It is the principal authority of its school and is provided with a commentary attributed to the author himself and with a later one by Candrakirti.[213] There is also ascribed to him a work called the Suhrillekha or friendly letter, a compendium of Buddhist doctrines, addressed to an Indian king.[214] This work is old for it was translated into Chinese in 434 A.D. and is a homily for laymen.  It says nothing of the Madhyamika philosophy and most of it deals with the need of good conduct and the terrors of future punishment, quite in the manner of the Hinayana.  But it also commends the use of images and incense in worship, it mentions Avalokita and Amitabha and it holds up the ideal of attaining Buddhahood.  Nagarjuna’s authorship is not beyond dispute but these ideas may well represent a type of popular Buddhism slightly posterior to Asvaghosha.[215]

In most lists of patriarchs Nagarjuna is followed by Deva, also called Aryadeva, Kanadeva or Nilanetra.  I-Ching mentions him among the older teachers and a commentary on his principal work, the Satasastra, is attributed to Vasubandhu.[216] Little is known of his special teaching but he is regarded as an important doctor and his pupil Dharmatrata is also important if not as an author at least as a compiler, for Sanskrit collections of verses corresponding to the Pali Dhammapada are ascribed to him.  Aryadeva was a native of southern India.[217]