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Mark Siderits and Shoryu Katsura translate the Sanskrit version of this term - prapañca - as hypostatization in Nagarjuna's Middle Way so it looks like I'm not too far off :)

With respect to the same female body, Three different notions are entertained By the ascetic, the lustful and a [wild] dog, As a corpse, an object of lust, or food.

In fact, prapañca is a concept so important to Nagarjuna that he opens his famous Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Way with this:

And here is how Siderits characterize the commentaries on this opening:

Indeed, if you look through Nagarjuna's verses you will see that this is the major subject of the treatise as the commentaries attest.

Mark Siderits and Shoryu Katsura translate the Sanskrit version of this term - prapañca - as hypostatization in Nagarjuna's Middle Way so it looks like I'm not too far off :)

With respect to the same female body,
Three different notions are entertained
By the ascetic, the lustful and a [wild] dog,
As a corpse, an object of lust, or food.

In fact, prapañca is a concept so important to Nagarjuna that he opens his famous Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Way with this:

And here is how Siderits characterizes the commentaries on this opening Homage Verse:

Indeed, if you look through the rest of Nagarjuna's verses you will see that this is a major subject of the treatise as the commentaries attest.

Here is that very same Homage Verse as translated by Garfield and commented on by Je Tsongkhapa:

I prostrate to the perfect Buddha,
The best of all teachers, who taught that
That which is dependent origination is
Without cessation, without arising;
Without annihilation, without permanence;
Without coming; without going;
Without distinction, without identity
And peaceful—free from fabrication.

Je Tsongkhapa cites Chandrakirti saying in his Prasannapada that these Homage Verses, "reveal the content and ultimate purpose of the Treatise."

Further, this site gives prapanca in Tibetan as spros pa which is also how it is used in Je Tsongkhapa's Ocean of Reasoning:

free from conceptual and verbal elaboration : sgra rtog gi spros pa zhi ba
sgra rtog gi spros pa zhi ba : free from conceptual and verbal fabrication

I am not a translator and do not know of the proper translation, but another closely related word that I'm particularly fond of is hypostatize. There is also the noun form hypostatization.

Mark Siderits and Shoryu Katsura translate the Sanskrit version of this term - prapañca - as hypostatization in Nagarjuna's Middle Way so it looks like I'm not too far off :)

The general definition is very close to reification. It means to attribute real ontological identity to a concept and Mirriam Webster gives the root as the Greek hypostatos which is "substantially existing."

Here is my favorite example of hypostatizing...

From Insight Into Emptiness page 258, “For example, a young woman may want to have a child. When she is asleep, she dreams she gives birth to a child and is elated. But later in the dream, the child dies and she is devastated. However, on waking, she sees that neither the exhilarating appearance of having a child that brought her joy nor the horrible appearance of the child’s death that caused her anguish is real.”

Before she woke up she hypostatized her child (attributed real concrete existence to it) and this led to both elation and anguish. After she woke she stopped the hypostatization and the elation and anguish faded. However, there is also something very subtle happening when she woke up: she considered the dream unreal in relation to something else! Unreal and real are a dichotomy and mutually dependent notions :)

Another great and famous example is that of how three different beings perceive a cup filled with a liquid substance.

Three beings each perceive a cup filled with a liquid substance in front of them. The first, a god, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “ambrosia!” The second, a human being, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “water.” The third, a hungry ghost, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “blood and pus.”

Which is real? Which is unreal? What is worthy of being hypostatized and what is not? This is sometimes referred to as the simile of the three cups of liquid in Mahayana texts.

Another famous example by Nagarjuna is the body of a woman being seen differently by an ascetic, a lustful man, or a wild dog:

With respect to the same female body, Three different notions are entertained By the ascetic, the lustful and a [wild] dog, As a corpse, an object of lust, or food.

Each hypostatizes the body as very different things. Which is real? Which is unreal? Can the body be thought of as having any essence whatsoever? Or is each perception thoroughly and utterly relative and dependent? Is there anything whatsoever objectively real or worthy of being hypostatized in such a situation? Can any of it withstand analysis?

I am not a translator and do not know of the proper translation, but another closely related word that I'm particularly fond of is hypostatize. There is also the noun form hypostatization.

Mark Siderits and Shoryu Katsura translate the Sanskrit version of this term - prapañca - as hypostatization in Nagarjuna's Middle Way so it looks like I'm not too far off :)

The general definition is very close to reification. It means to attribute real ontological identity to a concept and Mirriam Webster gives the root as the Greek hypostatos which is "substantially existing."

Here is my favorite example of hypostatizing...

From Insight Into Emptiness page 258, “For example, a young woman may want to have a child. When she is asleep, she dreams she gives birth to a child and is elated. But later in the dream, the child dies and she is devastated. However, on waking, she sees that neither the exhilarating appearance of having a child that brought her joy nor the horrible appearance of the child’s death that caused her anguish is real.”

Before she woke up she hypostatized her child (attributed real concrete existence to it) and this led to both elation and anguish. After she woke she stopped the hypostatization and the elation and anguish faded. However, there is also something very subtle happening when she woke up: she considered the dream unreal in relation to something else! Unreal and real are a dichotomy and mutually dependent notions :)

Another great and famous example is that of how three different beings perceive a cup filled with a liquid substance.

Three beings each perceive a cup filled with a liquid substance in front of them. The first, a god, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “ambrosia!” The second, a human being, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “water.” The third, a hungry ghost, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “blood and pus.”

Which is real? Which is unreal? What is worthy of being hypostatized and what is not? This is sometimes referred to as the simile of the three cups of liquid in Mahayana texts.

Another famous example by Nagarjuna is the body of a woman being seen differently by an ascetic, a lustful man, or a wild dog:

With respect to the same female body, Three different notions are entertained By the ascetic, the lustful and a [wild] dog, As a corpse, an object of lust, or food.

Each hypostatizes the body as very different things. Which is real? Which is unreal? Can the body be thought of as having any essence whatsoever? Or is each perception thoroughly and utterly relative and dependent? Is there anything whatsoever objectively real or worthy of being hypostatized in such a situation? Can any of it withstand analysis?

In fact, prapañca is a concept so important to Nagarjuna that he opens his famous Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Way with this:

And here is how Siderits characterize the commentaries on this opening:

Indeed, if you look through Nagarjuna's verses you will see that this is the major subject of the treatise as the commentaries attest.

I am not a translator and do not know of the proper translation, but another closely related word that I'm particularly fond of is hypostatize. There is also the noun form hypostatization.

The general definition is very close to reification. It means to attribute real ontological identity to a concept and Mirriam Webster gives the root as the Greek hypostatos which is "substantially existing."

Here is my favorite example of hypostatizing...

From Insight Into Emptiness page 258, “For example, a young woman may want to have a child. When she is asleep, she dreams she gives birth to a child and is elated. But later in the dream, the child dies and she is devastated. However, on waking, she sees that neither the exhilarating appearance of having a child that brought her joy nor the horrible appearance of the child’s death that caused her anguish is real.”

Before she woke up she hypostatized her child (attributed real concrete existence to it) and this led to both elation and anguish. After she woke she stopped the hypostatization and the elation and anguish faded. However, there is also something very subtle happening when she woke up: she considered the dream unreal in relation to something else! Unreal and real are a dichotomy and mutually dependent notions :)

Another great and famous example is that of how three different beings perceive a cup filled with a liquid substance.

Three beings each perceive a cup filled with a liquid substance in front of them. The first, a god, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “ambrosia!” The second, a human being, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “water.” The third, a hungry ghost, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “blood and pus.”

Which is real? Which is unreal? What is worthy of being hypostatized and what is not? This is sometimes referred to as the simile of the three cups of liquid in Mahayana texts.

Another famous example by Nagarjuna is the body of a woman being seen differently by an ascetic, a lustful man, or a wild dog:

With respect to the same female body, Three different notions are entertained By the ascetic, the lustful and a [wild] dog, As a corpse, an object of lust, or food.

Each hypostatizes the body as very different things. Which is real? Which is unreal? Can the body be thought of as having any essence whatsoever? Or is each perception thoroughly and utterly relative and dependent? Is there anything whatsoever objectively real or worthy of being hypostatized in such a situation? Can any of it withstand analysis?

I am not a translator and do not know of the proper translation, but another closely related word that I'm particularly fond of is hypostatize. There is also the noun form hypostatization.

Mark Siderits and Shoryu Katsura translate the Sanskrit version of this term - prapañca - as hypostatization in Nagarjuna's Middle Way so it looks like I'm not too far off :)

The general definition is very close to reification. It means to attribute real ontological identity to a concept and Mirriam Webster gives the root as the Greek hypostatos which is "substantially existing."

Here is my favorite example of hypostatizing...

From Insight Into Emptiness page 258, “For example, a young woman may want to have a child. When she is asleep, she dreams she gives birth to a child and is elated. But later in the dream, the child dies and she is devastated. However, on waking, she sees that neither the exhilarating appearance of having a child that brought her joy nor the horrible appearance of the child’s death that caused her anguish is real.”

Before she woke up she hypostatized her child (attributed real concrete existence to it) and this led to both elation and anguish. After she woke she stopped the hypostatization and the elation and anguish faded. However, there is also something very subtle happening when she woke up: she considered the dream unreal in relation to something else! Unreal and real are a dichotomy and mutually dependent notions :)

Another great and famous example is that of how three different beings perceive a cup filled with a liquid substance.

Three beings each perceive a cup filled with a liquid substance in front of them. The first, a god, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “ambrosia!” The second, a human being, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “water.” The third, a hungry ghost, looks and takes a sip and perceives, “blood and pus.”

Which is real? Which is unreal? What is worthy of being hypostatized and what is not? This is sometimes referred to as the simile of the three cups of liquid in Mahayana texts.

Another famous example by Nagarjuna is the body of a woman being seen differently by an ascetic, a lustful man, or a wild dog:

With respect to the same female body, Three different notions are entertained By the ascetic, the lustful and a [wild] dog, As a corpse, an object of lust, or food.

Each hypostatizes the body as very different things. Which is real? Which is unreal? Can the body be thought of as having any essence whatsoever? Or is each perception thoroughly and utterly relative and dependent? Is there anything whatsoever objectively real or worthy of being hypostatized in such a situation? Can any of it withstand analysis?