As per the story behind the name ‘Nagarjuna’, not long after Buddha passed away, Prajnaparamitha (Perfection of Wisdom) Suthras, the principle Mahayana teachings, had got disappeared from this world. This was because some ‘Nagas’ who had received those teachings from Buddha had taken them to their own oceanic world, for safekeeping. Some time later the ‘Nagas’ invited the monk Shrimantha to visit them, and returned those valuable scriptures to him. He brought the scriptures to the human world and propagated them widely. Because of his special relationship with the ‘Nagas’, and because he cured many ‘Nagas’ of sickness, he was given the name 'Protector of the Nagas' or the 'Protector Nagarjuna' and hence the ‘Naga’ (Snake) aspect is said to have formed a canopy crowning and shielding his human head. The word ‘Nagarjuna’ means the ‘noble serpent’.

Nagarjuna was considered to be a fairly active author, addressing the most pressing philosophical issues in the Buddhism and Brahmanism of his time, and more than that, carrying his Buddhist ideas into the fields of social, ethical and political philosophy as well as medicine. Kumarajeevan, who was the teacher of the Chinese traveller Fa Hien, translated 47 books into Chinese and wrote Nagarjuna's biography.

Nagarjuna is considered to be one of the ancient scholars and teachers of Ayurveda and was believed to have travelled and visited Thiruvizha Viharam temple near Cherthala in the Alappuzha district of the South Indian State of Kerala – the home State of Nagarjuna Ayurvedic Group.