Indian scholars of Buddhism

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 Abhayadatta Sri
 12th-century Indian Buddhist monk from Champaran district of Bihar.
 Work : Caturasitisiddhapravrtti → Lives of the eighty-four mahasiddhas
 He was also a disciple of Vajrasana who was one of the last great siddhas in the eleventh
century.

Abhayakaragupta
 11th-early 12th century CE
 Buddhist monk, scholar and tantric master (vajracarya) and the abbot of Vikramasila
monastery in modern-day, Bihar
 Work : Vajravali → "grand synthesis of tantric liturgy [rite]"
 Developed the Mantrayana-Madhyamaka doctrine to its final Indic form

Aryadeva
 Was a Mahayana Buddhist monk, a disciple of Nagarjuna and a Madhyamaka
philosopher
 From "Siṃhala" (Somewhere in Sri Lanka)
 Work : Catuhsataka (our Hundred Verses) & Dvadasamukhasastra

Asanga (4th century C.E)

 Most important spiritual figures" of Mahayana Buddhism
 Founder of the Yogachara school
 He and his half-brother Vasubandhu are regarded as the major classical Indian Sanskrit
exponents of Mahayana Abhidharma

Asvaghosa / Ashvaghosha (80 – c. 150 CE)

 Was a Sarvāstivāda or Mahasanghika Buddhist philosopher, dramatist, poet and orator
from India.
 He was born in Saketa, today known as Ayodhya.
 Greatest Indian poet prior to Kalidasa.
 Spiritual adviser of Kanishka
 Wrote in Classical Sanskrit
 Work : →
o Buddhacharita (the sacred biography of the Buddha)
o Saundarananda (a Sanskrit kavya).
o First Sanskrit play Sariputraprakarana
o Sutralankara

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 Atisa (982–1054)
 Major figures in the spread of 11th-century Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism in Asia
and inspired Buddhist thought from Tibet to Sumatra.
 Associated with his work carried out at the Vikramashila monastery in Bihar
 Atisa's chief disciple, Dromton, was the founder of the Kadam school, one of the New
Translation schools of Tibetan Buddhism, later supplanted by the Gelug tradition in the
14th century which adopted its teachings and absorbed its monasteries.

Bhaviveka (500 – 570)

 Madhyamaka Buddhist philosopher.
 Alternative names → Bhavyaviveka, Bhavin, Bhaviviveka, Bhagavadviveka and Bhavya.
 He is the author of the Madhyamakahrdaya (Heart of the Middle), its auto-commentary
the Tarkajvala (Blaze of Reasoning) and the Prajnapradipa (Lamp for Wisdom).
 In Tibetan Buddhism He is regarded as the founder of the Svatantrika Tradition of
madhyamaka, as opposed to the Prasangika Madhyamaka of Chandrakirti.

There is also another later author called Bhavaviveka who wrote another set of madhyamaka
texts. He is sometimes called Bhavaviveka II by modern scholars.

Bodhidharma (5th or 6th CE)

 Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk
 He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China, and regarded
as its first Chinese patriarch.

Bodhisena (704–760)
 Bodhisena or Bodaisenna was a South Indian Tamil Buddhist scholar and monk known for
traveling to Japan and establishing the Kegon school, the Japanese transmission of the
Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism.

Buddhadatta (5th-century)
 5th-century Theravada Buddhist writer from the town of Uragapura in the Chola
kingdom of South India
 He wrote many of his works in the Bhutamangalagama monastery
 Patron : Accutavikkanta of the Kalamba dynasty
 Buddhadatta traveled to Sri Lanka's Mahavihara in Anuradhapura to study and translate
the commentaries on the Buddha's teachings from Sinhalese to Pali.
 He is said to have met Buddhagosa at sea while returning to India,
 Work : Abhidhammavatara

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 Buddhaghosa
 5th century Indian Theravada Buddhist commentator, translator and philosopher.
 Worked in the Great Monastery (Mahāvihāra) at Anurādhapura, Sri Lanka
 Work : Visuddhimagga (The Path to Purity) deals with development from purity of
discipline to nibanna/enlightenment)

Buddhapalita (5th - 6th centuries)

 5th-6th centuries CE was an Indian Mahayana Buddhist commentator on the works of
Nagarjuna and Aryadeva
 Work : Mulamadhyamaka-vrtti commentary to the Mulamadhyamakakarika.
 Buddhapālita's commentarial approach works was criticised by his contemporary
Bhaviveka, and then defended by the later Candrakirti (c. 600–650)

Chandragomin (5th century)

 Chandragomin (Skt. Candragomin) was an Indian Buddhist lay scholar and poet from the
Varendra region of Eastern Bengal.
 The Tibetan tradition believes challenged Chandrakirti.
 Chandragomin was a teacher at Nalanda Monastic University during the 5th century.
o Their debate was said to have continued for many years.
o Chandragomin held the Chittamatra (consciousness-only or Yogachara) view, and
Chandrakirti gave his interpretation of Nagarjuna's view, eventually creating a
new school of Madhyamaka known as Prasangika.
o This Nalanda tradition school is known as Prasangika Madhyamaka or rendered in
English as the "Consequentialist" or "Dialecticist" school.

Chandrakirti (600 - 650)

 Was a Buddhist scholar of the Madhyamaka school and a noted commentator on the
works of Nagarjuna (c. 150 – c. 250 CE) and those of his main disciple, Aryadeva.
 He wrote two influential works on madhyamaka →
o Prasannapada.
o Madhyamakavatara
 In Tibetan Buddhism, Chandrakirti became a prominent source for the study of
madhyamaka philosophy.

Dharmakirti (6th or 7th century)

 Was an influential Indian Buddhist philosopher who worked at Nalanda.
 He was one of the key scholars of epistemology (pramaṇa) in Buddhist philosophy, and is
associated with the Yogacara and Sautrantika schools.

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 He was also one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism.
 His works influenced the scholars of Mimamsa, Nyaya and Shaivism schools of Hindu
philosophy as well as scholars of Jainism.
 His Importants works →
o Pramanavarttika (Commentary on the Means of Valid Cognition),
o Hetubindu (A Drop of Logical Reason) investigates logic,
o The Vadanyaya (The Rule for Disputations),
o Santanantarasiddhi (A evidence of other mental continuities)

Dharmapala of Nalanda (530–561 CE)

 He was one of the main teachers of the Yogacara School in India.
 He was a contemporary of Bhavaviveka (490-570 CE.), with whom he debated.
 Xuanzang, the famous Chinese pilgrim, tells that Dharmapala was born in Kanchipuram,
Tamil Nadu
 He studied in Nalanda as a student of Dignaga. Later he succeeded him as abbot of the
University. He spent his last years near the Bodhi tree, where he died.

Dharmaraksita (9th Century)

 Credited with composing an important Mahayana text called the Wheel of Sharp
Weapons.
 He was the teacher of Atisa, who was instrumental in establishing a second wave of
Buddhism in Tibet.

Dharmottara (8th- Century)

 Buddhist author of several important works on pramana (valid cognition, epistemology),
including commentaries on the writings of Dharmakirti.
 Only one of his works survives in the original Sanskrit, the Nyayabindutika, while others
survive in Tibetan translation.

Dignaga (480 – 540 CE)

 Buddhist scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian logic (hetu vidya).
 Dignaga’s work laid the groundwork for the development of deductive logic in India and
epistemology (Pramana).
 Dignaga thought influenced later Buddhist philosophers like Dharmakirti and also Hindu
thinkers of the Nyaya school.

Haribhadra (8th-century)
 Haribhadra Buddhist philosopher, and a disciple of Santaraksita, an early Indian Buddhist
missionary to Tibet.

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  He was one of the founding monks of the Vikramashila monastery.
 Haribhadra's commentary on the Abhisamayalankara was one of the most influential of
the twenty-one Indian commentaries on that text, perhaps because of its author's status as
Shantarakshita's student.
 Like his master, Haribhadra is retrospectively considered by Tibetan doxographical
tradition to represent the Yogacara-Svatantrika-Madhyamaka school.

Abhisamayalankara

One of five Sanskrit-language Mahayana Sastras which, according to Tibetan tradition,

Maitreya revealed to Asaṅga in northwest India circa the 4th century AD.

Jnanagarbha (8th Century)

 Buddhist philosopher from Nalanda who wrote on Madhyamaka and Yogacara and is
considered part of Bhaviveka's Svatantrika tradition.
 He was a student of Shrigupta and the teacher and ordaining master of Santaraksita.

Jnanasrimitra (975-1025 CE)

 Buddhist philosopher of the epistemological (pramana) tradition of Buddhist philosophy,
which goes back to Dignaga and Dharmakirti .
 He was also a poet, a dvarapandita (gate-scholar) of Vikramasila and was the teacher of
Ratnakirti.
 Jnanasrimitra was well known by Hindu and Jain thinkers and was the most significant
Buddhist figure of his era.
 His philosophical work focused on Buddhist logic and epistemology (pramana),
especially the theory of "exclusion" (apoha) outlined by Dignaga.
 Work : Apohaprakaraṇa ("Monograph on Exclusion")

Kamalasila (740-795)
 Was an Indian Buddhist of Nalanda Mahavihara who accompanied Śāntarakṣita (725–
788)
 Most important Madhyamaka authors of late Indian Buddhism although little is known
about his life aside from details left in Tibetan sources.
 Work : Bhavanakrama (Stages of Meditation)

Kumaralata (3rd century)

 Founder of the Sautrantika school of Buddhism. He was a native of Taxila, in modern day
Pakistan
 Considered one of the "Four Suns Illuminating The World", other three being Asvaghosa
, Aryadeva and Nagarjuna.
 Work : Kalpanamanditika

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 The Sautrantikas were sometimes also called "disciples of Kumaralata".
 According to the Chinese sources, Harivarman (250-350 CE) was a student of Kumaralata
who became disillusioned with Buddhist Abhidharma and then wrote the Tattvasiddhi-
sastra

Maitripada
 Prominent Indian Buddhist Mahasiddha associated with the Mahamudra transmission of
tantric Buddhism.
 His teachers were Shavaripa and Naropa. His students include Atisha, Marpa, Vajrapani,
Karopa, Natekara (also known as Sahajavajra), Devakaracandra (also known as
Sunyatasamadhi), and Ramapala
 His hermitage was in the Mithila region (also known as Tirhut), somewhere in northern
Bihar and neighboring parts of southern Nepal.
 Most important works are a collection of 26 texts on "non-conceptual realization"
(amanasikara), which are a key Indian source of mahāmudrā in the Tibetan tradition.

Nagarjuna
 Nagarjuna: He is often termed an Indian Einstein who proposed the Theory of Relativity in
his time in the form of a Sutra, the Prajna Parimata Sutra.
 He was also a great exponent of the Mahayana doctrine and propounded the
Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism (also known as Sunyavada School) which
focuses on sunyata or emptiness
o His Mulamadhyamakakarika (Root Verses on Madhyamaka, or MMK) is the most
important text on the madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness.
 In some traditions he is known as an Indian metallurgist
 Nagarjun was a learned Buddhist of Nalanda University with profound knowledge in
chemistry. He wrote books like ‘Rasaratnakar’ and ‘Arogyamanjari’ on chemistry and
medicine respectively. Rasaratnakara describes methods for the extraction of metals like
gold, silver, tin and copper. https://www.myindiamyglory.com/2019/12/18/nagarjuna-
wizard-in-alchemy-metallurgy-introduced-gold-shine-mechanism/

Naropa
 Aka. Naḍapada or Abhayakirti or Abhayakirti
 Was an Indian Buddhist Mahasiddha. He was the disciple of Tilopa and brother, or some
sources say partner and pupil, of Niguma.

Padmasambhava (8th – 9th C)

 Aka. Guru Rinpoche (Precious Guru) and the Lotus from Oḍḍiyāna,
 Was a tantric Buddhist Vajra master from India who taught Vajrayana in Tibet

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 He came to Tibet in the 8th century and helped construct Samye Monastery, the first
Buddhist monastery in Tibet.
 Credited with founding the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism

Paramartha (499-569 CE
 Was an Indian monk from Ujjain, who is best known for his prolific Chinese translations
of Buddhist texts during the Six Dynasties era
 He is known as one of the four great translators in Chinese Buddhist history (along with
Kumarajiva and Xuanzang).
 He is also known for the various oral commentaries he gave on his translations which were
written down by his disciples (and now only survive in fragmentary form).
 Some of Paramārtha's influential translations include
o Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosa,
o Asaṅga’s Mahayanasaṃgraha, and
o Dignāga's Alambanapariksa & Hastavalaprakarana

Ratnakarasanti (10th-century CE)

 Was one of the eighty-four Buddhist Mahasiddhas and a monk at the monastic
university of Vikramashila in what is now modern-day Bihar
 At Vikramashila he was instructed by Naropa, and taught both Atisa and Maitripa.
 His texts include several influential commentaries to Buddhist tantras, as well as works of
philosophy and logic.

Ratnakirti (11th C)
 Was an Indian Buddhist philosopher of the Yogacara and epistemological (pramanavada)
schools who wrote on logic, philosophy of mind and epistemology.
 Ratnakīrti studied at the Vikramasila monastery in modern-day Bihar. He was a pupil of
Jnanasrimitra
 He was one of the last Buddhist philosophers in India.

Sankaranandana
 Was a Mahayana Buddhist philosopher, and a Brahmin lay devotee active in Kashmir in
the epistemological (pramana) tradition of Dignaga and Dharmakirti.
 He was quite influential in both Kashmir and Tibet, and became known as "the second
Dharmakirti," and “the Great Brahmin.

Santaraksita
 Was an important and influential Indian Buddhist philosopher, particularly for the Tibetan
Buddhist tradition.

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 He was a philosopher of the Madhyamaka school who studied at Nalanda monastery
under Jnanagarbha, and became the founder of Samye, the first Buddhist monastery in
Tibet.

Shantideva (8th-century CE)

 Indian philosopher, Buddhist monk, poet, and scholar at the mahavihara of Nalanda.
 He was an adherent of the Madhyamaka philosophy of Nagarjuna.
 He is also considered to be one of the 84 mahasiddhas and is known as Bhusuku.

Shavaripa
 Indian Buddhist teacher, one of the eighty-four Mahasiddhas, honored as being among
the holders of the distant transmission of Mahamudra.
 He was a student of Nagarjuna and a teacher of Maitripa.

Silabhadra
 Was a Buddhist monk and philosopher. He is best known as being an abbot [Teacher] of
Nalanda monastery in India, as being an expert on Yogacara teachings, and for being the
personal tutor of the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang [aka. Hsiuen Tsang].

Sthiramati (6th-century)
 Indian Buddhist scholar-monk. Sthiramati was a contemporary of Dharmapala based
primarily in Valabhi University (present-day Gujarat)
 He was renowned for his numerous and detailed commentaries on Yogācāra and
Abhidharma, works by Vasubandhu and others,

Tilopa (988–1069)
 Was an Indian Buddhist monk in the tantric Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism
 He lived along the Ganges River, with wild ladies as a tantric practitioner and mahasiddha

Vasubandhu (4th to 5th century)

 was an influential Indian Buddhist monk and scholar from Gandhara
 Patron : Samudragupta
 Along with his half-brother, Asanga, he was also one of the main founders of the
Yogachara school. Because of their association with Nalanda university, Vasubandhu and
Asanga are amongst the so-called Seventeen Nalanda Masters.
 Work : Abhidharmakosa [in Sanskrit]

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 Vasumitra (2nd century CE)
 Vasumitra was a Buddhist monk of the Sarvastivada school
 He presided over the 4th Buddhist council in Kashmir, administered by Kanishka.
 He is credited as contributing to the Mahavibhasa [ancient Buddhist text]

Virupa (8th-9th century)

 Also known as Virupaksa and Tutop Wangchuk, was an 8th-9th century Indian mahasiddha
and yogi, and the source of important cycles of teachings in Tibetan Buddhism

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