Madhyamakāvatāra

The ‘Entrance to the Middle Way’, being a work of Candrakīrti which relates the Madhyamaka doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā) to the religious practice of a Bodhisattva. The text contains ten chapters, each devoted to one of the ten perfections (pāramitā) practised by the Bodhisattva as he advances through the ten stages (bhūmi) to Buddhahood. The sixth perfection, the Perfection of Insight (prajñā-pāramitā), receives the most extensive treatment and accounts for over half the text. In the course of the work the main tenets of Madhyamaka thought are expounded, such as emptiness (śūnyatā), the Two Truths, and the selflessness of persons and all phenomena. The work survives only in Tibetan along with a commentary (bhāṣya) also by Candrakīrti. These works are considered essential for understanding Madhyamaka thought and are studied intensively in Tibetan monastic institutions, particularly among the Gelukpa.

A Dictionary of Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 2003, 2004 (which is available in electronic version from answer.com)