Dear Dean,
Yes, that is one of the passages from the Dazhidu
lun I indicated (the title has been back-translated as
mahaprajnaparamita-sastra), so this is from the Chinese. This is the one that
contains the expression 指指月 zhi zhi yue "finger pointing at the moon"
twice.
Here, in case you are interested, is the Chinese
text:
《大智度論》卷9〈1
序品〉：「依義」者，義中無諍好惡、罪福、虛實故，語以得義，義非語也。如人以指指月以示惑者，惑者視指而不視月，人語之言：「我以指指月令汝知之，汝何看指而不視月？」此亦如是，語為義指，語非義也。是以故不應依語」(T25.1509.125a29-b5)
So this is from the Dazhidu lun 大智度論, fascicle 9,
"Introduction", found at Taisho volume 25, text # 1509, p. 125, line 29 of the
top register, continuing to line 5 of the middle register. A Taisho page has
three registers per page.
I don't think there is a consensus on Nagarjuna's
authorship -- some argue it is authentic because translated by Kumarajiva, but I
am in the camp that questions the attribution. The more likely scenario is that
because Nagarjuna becomes associated with the Prajnaparamita corpus (legend
holds he retrieved it from the Naga king at the sea bottom, a "hidden" scripture
containing the Buddha's words awaiting the right time and person to be
"revealed" since its Mahayanic message was ahead of its time), that association
led someone to pseudepigraphically attributing the Dazhidu lun to him. Some have
speculated that it may have been authored by Kumarajiva himself.
As with much of the Nagarjuna literature, it
remains an open question. In recent times some scholars have even begun to
question whether the Vigraha-vyavartani -- hitherto considered along with the
Madhyamaka-karikas as the touchstone bone fides of authentic Nagarjuna writing
-- may have not been written by him.
Two points:
The madhyamika tradition in China, based on
Kumarajiva's translations, was called Sanlun, "three treatises," those three
being MMK, The 12 Gate Treatise, and the Dazhidulun. Anyone who has read the 12
Gate Treatise will immediately recognize its derivative nature and lack of
intellectual spark -- so hardly anyone considers that an authentic Nagarjuna
text. Hence Kumarajiva attributions are not bona fides.
9 out of 10 times when an East Asian traditional
source cites or mentions Nagarjuna, what they mean is the Dazhidu lun. That text
had wide popularity -- the other two lun-s are rarely if ever cited. So the East
Asian sense of who and what Nagarjuna was, is
quite different from what we in the West (or Tibet) have
cultivated.
best,
Dan