Chandrakirti

Chandrakirti (IAST: Candrakīrti; traditional Chinese: 月稱 ;

Chandrakirti
c. 600 – c. 650, meaning "glory of the moon" in Sanskrit) or
"Chandra" 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, the Prasannapadā and the
Madhyamakāvatāra.[1]

Chandrakirti does not seem to have been very influential during the
7th to 10 centuries, and his works were never translated into
Chinese.[2][1] However, by the 11th and 12th centuries, his work
became influential in the north, especially in Kashmir and in Tibet.
Over time, Chandrakirti became a major source for the study of
madhyamaka philosophy in Tibetan Buddhism.[1]
traditional Chinese: 月稱; pinyin:
As noted by Kevin A. Vose, Chandrakirti is seen by many Tibetan Yuèchēng; Japanese: Gesshō;
Buddhists as offering "the most thorough and accurate vision of Tibetan: ཟླ་བ་གྲགས་པ་, Wylie: zla
Nāgārjuna's emptiness, which, in turn, most fully represents the ba grags pa, Lhasa dialect: [tàwa
final truth of the Buddha's teaching."[3] He is considered by ʈʰàʔpa]
Tibetans to be the main exponent of what they term the
"Prāsaṅgika" sub-school of madhyamaka. However, this Born 600 CE
doxographical categorization only arose in Tibet during the 12th South India
century.[3] Died 650 CE
Education Nalanda University
Life Era Early Medieval India

Very little is known about Chandrakirti's life, though Tibetan Region Buddhist philosophy
sources state that he was born in South India, became a Buddhist School Madhyamaka
monk and was a student of Kamalabuddhi (who was the student of
Buddhapalita).[1][4] Tibetan sources like Bu ston and Taranatha state that Chandrakirti was active at
Nalanda University, where he is said to have become an abbot.[1][5] He is also said to have debated the
yogācāra philosopher Chandragomin.[4]

According to Karen Lang:

According to Bus ton and Taranatha, Candrakirti was born in south India and entered a
monastery, where he mastered all the Buddhist scriptures. Taranatha adds that he was born in
Samanta during the reign of King Sila, the son of Sriharsa. He took a special interest in
Nagarjuna's treatises and studied them with the disciples of two rival interpreters, Bhavaviveka
 and Buddhapalita. He preferred Buddhapalita's interpretations of Madhyamaka teachings and
defended them in a famous debate with the grammarian Candragomin, who supported the
idealist position of the Vijñanavada (Doctrine of Consciousness) school.[6]

Philosophy
Chandrakirti was a philosopher of the madhyamaka school of Nagarjuna. This school held that all
phenomena (dharmas) were empty of intrinsic nature or self-existence (Sanskrit: svabhāva). This includes
all Buddhist phenomena including the Buddha, the four noble truths and nirvana. According to
Chandrakirti, the apophatic method of madhyamaka is a thoroughgoing negation of all concepts,
propositions (pratijñā) and views (dṛṣṭi) which affirms neither existence nor non-existence. Due to this
radical negation, madhyamaka is seen as a middle way which rejects all extreme views and positions.[5]

For Chandrakirti, even though all phenomena lack svabhāva, sentient beings impute svabhāva in their
experience due to their ignorance about the true nature of reality. Ultimately, all phenomena are merely
conceptual constructs (prajñaptimatra) which do not exist in themselves but are mentally imputed
dependent designations (prajñāptirupādāya).[5]

Thubten Jinpa outlines what has been seen by commentators as the main philosophical ideas put forth by
Chandrakirti as follows:

(1) rejection of formal inference based on criteria grounded in objects facts of the world,
relying instead on consequential reasoning that reveals logical contradictions and absurd
consequences entailed by an opponent's positions, (2) rejection of the key tenets of the
Buddhist epistemology initiated by Dignaga and developed further by Dharmakirti, (3) a
radical understanding of the inaccessibility of ultimate truth through language and thought, (4)
an understanding of conventional truth that appeals for its validity to everyday intuitions of the
world instead of philosophical grounding, (5) a unique interpretation of Nagarjuna's statement
about his having no thesis, and (6) the possible cessation of mind and mental factors in
buddhahood.[7]

Two Truths

Like all madhyamikas, Chandrakirti defends a theory of two truths with a strict anti-foundationalist
character.[8] According to Chandrakirti, all things (bhāva) have two natures, the conventional and the
ultimate.[9][8]

The conventional truth (saṁvṛti satya) is the fact that, provisionally speaking, phenomena have a nature or
existence (bhāva).[5] For example, a property of fire is heat and so on. This is the truth of the everyday
world (lokasaṁvṛtisatya) and the truth of conventional transaction (vyavahārasatya).[9] However, these
conventional properties are not intrinsic natures or svabhāvas (even conventionally speaking), since for
Chandra, even conventional truth is empty of intrinsic natures. This view differentiates Chandrakirti from
other madhyamikas like Bhāviveka which affirm the conventional existence of intrinsic natures.[8][10]

Regarding the ultimate truth (paramārtha satya), when fire is analyzed to find its ultimate nature, no
independent essence is found that makes fire hot, and thus fire (and all things, including the most basic
concepts like time and causality) have no ultimate essence or nature. This is the ultimate truth i.e. emptiness
(śūnyatā) or the lack of self-existence (niḥsvabhāva).[5][8] It is this very lack of inherent nature in
conventional truth that allows it to change and have causal efficacy (arthakriya) and thus, to be a dependent
arising (pratītyasamutpāda).[8]

The nature of conventional truth

The conventional is the "domain of mundane cognitive process, and is readily accessible for ordinary
beings" according to Sonam Thakchoe.[8] The conventional truth can be contrasted with conventional
falsehood based on erroneous cognitions.[9] Correct cognition is differentiated from false cognitions by
sense faculties that are not impaired. A related distinction which Chandrakirti makes is that between worldly
conventions (lokasaṃvṛti), which are epistemically reliable from the point of view of ordinary beings and
conventions that do not reflect the world (alokasaṃvṛti) and are thus deceptive even by worldly
standards.[8]

"Conventional" (saṁvṛti) can also mean "covering" according to Chandrakirti and is also associated with
delusion or ignorance (avidyā).[9][8] Furthermore, he also glosses the term as codependent
(paraparasaṃbhavana) and as being signified (saṁket) or worldly convention (lokavyavahāra).[8]

The conventional truth, especially as experienced by ordinary people (who reify reality), is a concealing and
deluded kind of truth which may act as an obstacle to understanding the ultimate.[11][8] From the ultimate
point of view in fact, saṁvṛtisatya is not really true.[9] Indeed, Chandrakirti explains that conventional
phenomena are illusory and unreal and can be compared to a mirage. The only difference is that
conventional phenomena have some causal efficacy from the mundane point of view (for example, water
can help a thirsty person, a mirage cannot).[8]

Furthermore, these conventional phenomena are to be differentiated from conventionally illusory entities,
such as intrinsic natures or essences that are imputed on to things (which do not exist at all, even
conventionally) and conventionally unreal entities (like the horns of a rabbit, which also do not exist at
all).[8] The main difference between these latter two unreal phenomena is that the conventionally unreal
entities are understood to be unreal by ordinary people, whereas intrinsic nature is not understood to be
unreal by ordinary persons. Instead, ordinary persons impute intrinsic nature on to conventional phenomena
(such as water etc.) and perceive them as being intrinsically real (only noble beings realize that this is
illusory). As such, intrinsic nature is a conceptual fiction in the minds of ordinary beings.[8]

In spite of the unreality of the conventional, Chandrakirti states that the Buddha taught using language and
conventional expressions as a way to guide people to the ultimate truth, which is beyond language and
cannot be expressed through words.[11]

For Chandrakirti, the way that ordinary beings experience the conventional is very different from the way
that awakened saints or noble beings (āryas) experience the conventional. Chandrakirti introduced the
concept of mere convention (Tibetan: kun rdzob tsam) to refer to how noble ones experience
conventionality, which is quite different to what is held to be conventionally real or conventional true (kun
rdzob bden pa). Ordinary beings grasp at and misconstrue phenomena as being intrinsically real, thus they
experience conventional reality. Enlightened beings meanwhile, only experience a non-reified kind of
appearance, which is perceived as being an unreal construct, like a reflected image.[8]

The nature of the ultimate truth

Chandrakirti defines ultimate reality as "the nature of things found by particular exalted cognitive processes
(yeshes) of those who perceive reality." He further defines it as follows:[8]
 “Ultimate is the object, the nature of which is found by particular exalted cognitive processes
of those who perceive reality. But it does not exist by virtue of its intrinsic objective reality
(svarūpatā / bdag gi ngo bo nyid)."

As such, the ultimate truth for Chandra is the nature of all conventional things that is found by a particular
exalted perception which sees how things really are. However, as indicated by Chandra, this nature is also
not truly real.[8]

According to Chandrakirti, the ultimate truth, emptiness, is seen as having two aspects: selflessness of
persons (pudgalanairātmya) and selflessness of phenomena (dharmanairātmya). Chandrakirti provides
various arguments to show that persons, phenomena (dharmas) and emptiness itself are all unreal and
empty.[8]

The ultimate truth, the lack of self-nature in all phenomena, also refers to the fact that phenomena do not
arise or cease at all. Even though conventional phenomena appear to arise and pass away through
dependent arising, this appearance is in fact unreal and illusory.[8] Thus, for Chandrakirti, the wisdom
which realizes the ultimate truth is the realization that phenomena (dharmas) do not arise or come into being
from themselves, from another thing, from both themselves and another thing, or without a cause.[11] Just
like Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti refutes all positions regarding the arising of phenomena, summing up his
position as follows:

Entities do not arise causelessly, and they do not arise through causes like God, for example.
Nor do they arise out of themselves, nor from another, nor from both. They arise
codependently.[8]

In this sense then, all phenomena are intrinsically unreal and like illusions, since they truly are not what they
appear to be.[8]

According to Chandrakirti, this very ultimate truth (i.e. emptiness and non-arising), is also empty, in the
sense that it is also dependent on the provisional truth of dependent imputation. Another way to state this is
that only what lacks inherent nature is dependently originated and causally efficacious.[8]

Chandrakirti explains the emptiness of emptiness as follows:

The emptiness of intrinsic reality of things is itself called by the wise as ‘emptiness,’ and this
emptiness also is considered to be empty of any intrinsic reality. The emptiness of that which is
called ‘emptiness’ is accepted as ‘the emptiness of emptiness’ (śūnyatāśūnyatā). It is explained
in this way for the purpose of controverting objectification of the emptiness as intrinsically real
(bhāva).[8]

Thus, according to Chandrakirti's doctrine of "the emptiness of emptiness", the ultimate truth is not some
absolute reality, existential ground or ontological foundation, but refers to a mere absence of nature, and
thus to the illusory and unreal character of things.[5][8]

Because of the unreality of the conventional and the ineffability of the ultimate, Chandrakirti holds that
madhyamikas do not formally put forth any elaborate theory of the conventional truth apart from the
ordinary worldly experience that is accepted by worldly convention or common consensus.[10] According
to Chandrakirti, theories which seek to explain the workings of the conventional truth (like the metaphysics
of samkhya or yogacara) actually obscure and undermine our understanding of conventional truth, since it is
at variance with direct experience. These theories also undermine our understanding of the ultimate truth
(which is the very nature of our experience) since the ultimate cannot be understood conceptually and can
only be accessed through the gateway of one's conventional direct experience.[12]

Prāsa ṅga and reasoning

Chandrakirti defended Buddhapālita and his madhyamaka method against the views of Bhāviveka.
According to Chandra, Madhyamikas should not use autonomous or independent inferences
(svatantrānumāna) when debating an opponent.[1][13] This method had been developed by the Buddhist
epistemologist Dignāga and had been adopted by madhyamikas like Bhāviveka.[14][15] Bhāviveka had
argued that to be able to accurately and effectively defend the madhyamaka view against its opponents, one
needed to positively prove one's thesis by means of independent inferences (svatantrānumāna) in formal
syllogisms (prayoga) which proved the madhyamika thesis in a self-contained manner independent of the
views of non-madhyamika interlocutors.[5][16] He therefore faulted Buddhapālita's analysis of madhyamaka
as inadequate.[17]

Chandrakirti critiqued Bhāviveka on this point and argued that madhyamaka thinkers should instead only
rely on prāsaṅga arguments (literally "consequence"), which mainly refers to reductio arguments that seek
to show how an opponent's views lead to absurd or unwanted consequences.[1][15][5] Furthermore, these
reductio arguments only refute the opponents position on the opponent's own terms. They do not put forth a
counter-position in return nor do they commit the madhyamika to the principles and conclusions used in the
course of the argument.[18] In this sense, the madhyamikas merely point out the absurdity of their opponents
views without stating a position of their own, and merely indicate the truth indirectly.[18]

Chandrakirti states:

Whoever speaks in terms of independently valid logical arguments (inferences) reaps some
fault. We do not rely on them, because the only fruit of our arguments is the annulment of
someone else's thesis.[19]

Chandrakirti argues that the idea that one must use the syllogistic arguments commits one to the acceptance
of inherent natures or some other form of foundationalism or essentialism.[5][13][8] He also points out that
Nagarjuna did not make use of such arguments and relied on prāsaṅga. Chandrakirti sees figures like
Bhāviveka as not really being madhyamikas, instead he sees them as logicians which "may take the side of
the madhyamaka school out of a desire to parade the extent of his own dialectical skill." According to
Chandrakirti, the philosophical practices of these logicians, motivated as they are by a desire for certainty
and logic, becomes "an enormous reservoir where faults pile up one after another."[19] Thus, Chandrakirti
does not see Bhāviveka as being a madhyamika (unlike later Tibetan doxographers), but sees him as being a
logician (tārkika), like other Buddhist thinkers such as Dignaga.[20]

Another problem which Chandrakirti sees with the idea that a madhyamika must use independent
syllogisms is that a madhyamika interlocutor and any essentialist or realist opponent do not share a basic set
of premises required for syllogistic reasoning. This is because they do not have the same idea of what it
means for something to "exist" and therefore they cannot even agree on a set of basic premises on which to
develop an independent syllogism.[21][13] The validity of any independent syllogism depends on the fact
that the terminology it uses has the same meaning for both parties in the debate. However, this is impossible
in a debate between a madhyamika and a realist according to Chandrakirti, since the very subject of debate
is the nature of how the very objects of discussion are said to exist. Thus, a true madhyamika cannot put
forth an independent syllogism which is not defective. Furthermore, if both parties use the same
terminology but interpret them differently, they also lack a common understanding on which to ground a
debate.[22]

Prāsaṅga arguments meanwhile, are mainly negative, and thus do not require the affirmation of any
positive thesis or view, but merely deconstructs the arguments of one's opponent. As such, Chandrakirti
thinks prāsaṅga arguments are more suited to the apophatic method of madhyamaka philosophy.[5][11]
Indeed, according to Chandrakirti, madhyamaka presents no positive view at all and he cites Nagarjuna's
Vigrahavyāvartanī in which he states "I have no thesis" in this regard.[13]

Chandrakirti also critiques the view of the non-madhyamika epistemologists like Dignāga for having failed
to provide a sufficiently indisputable foundation for their premises and for having failed to respond to
Nagarjuna's criticism of the foundations of pramana in the Vigrahavyāvartanī.[11]

There is a further problem with the view of the logicians and this is that, for Chandrakirti, all cognitions
involve ignorance from an ultimate point of view and thus no cognition is fully reliable. Because of this,
meditation on emptiness does not rely on an object at all (even the idea or view of emptiness) and ultimate
truth is thus said to be beyond the ordinary mind.[13][23] However, there is a role for reasoning in
Chandrakirti's thought. Reasoning is only useful for negating all views regarding existence and non-
existence. Furthermore, reasoning must also negate itself, because it also relies on conceptual proliferation
(prapañca), which is based on ignorance.[13] Thus, for Chandrakirti, reasoning and conceptual thought
cannot know the ultimate truth, because the ultimate is beyond all concepts and discursive proliferation
(prapañca).[24] However, reasoning can be used to understand the very limitations of reason and thought in
explaining the ultimate and how any attempt at conceptually understanding the ultimate leads to
contradictions. Reason can thus indirectly point to the ineffable ultimate truth (which can only be realized
by another means, i.e. through wisdom, jñana) by revealing what it is not.[25]

Buddhahood

Chandrakirti's view of Buddhahood is related to his apophatic views. For Chandrakirti, a Buddha's
knowing of emptiness is not really knowing anything at all. Instead, a Buddha's knowledge of emptiness is
a non-knowing in which there is neither an object nor a mind engaged in the act of knowing the object.
Because of this, Chandrakirti holds that for a Buddha, all mind and mental factors (cittacaitta) have ceased.
Even though from the point of view of ordinary people, a Buddha seems to teach and engage in activities,
from the point of view of a Buddha, no conscious decisions are being made and no cognition occurs.[13]

Critiques of Yogācāra

In his Madhyamakāvatāra, Chandrakirti also offered refutations of a number of Buddhist views such as
those of the vijñānavāda ("consciousness doctrine") or yogācāra school.[26] Chandrakirti understood this
tradition as positing a kind of subjective idealism.[11] According to Chandrakirti, the yogācāra school fails
to fully understand the empty nature of consciousness since they ontologically privilege consciousness over
its objects. However, according to Chandrakirti, both are equally empty and neither have any ontological
primacy or ultimate existence. Thus, for Chandrakirti, yogācāra fails to appreciate how everything,
including consciousness, is conditioned and empty.[13][11]

Chandrakirti also examines and refutes the basic theories of yogācāra, including the theory of the three
natures and the theory of the storehouse consciousness.[9] Chandrakirti cites the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra in order
to argue that the storehouse consciousness is a provisional teaching of indirect meaning (neyartha).[27] He
also critiques the yogācāra denial of an external object (bāhyārtha, bahirartha) of knowledge and the
yogācāra theory of ‘self-awareness’ (svasamvedana, svasamvitti).[27]

Furthermore, Chandrakirti interprets the various statements in the Mahayana sutras which seem to promote
idealism in a different way than the yogācāra school. According to Chandrakirti, sutra teachings which state
that "all is mind" and the like were taught by the Buddha as a way to counter the idea that our sufferings are
caused by external forces and actors. According to Chandrakirti, to counter this wrong view and to help
people understand that suffering mainly arises due to the way we understand our experience, the Buddha
taught that all is mind (citta-matra) or idea/impressions (vijñapti-matra). Chandrakirti argues that it is a
mistake to take this literally as an ontological statement and to conclude that only consciousness exists.[11]

Major works
Chandra's major works are:[8]

Mūlamadhyamaka-vṛtti-prasannapadā (Clear-word Commentary on the Fundamental Verses

of the Middle Way), known simply as the Prasannapadā (Clear Words), A commentary on
Nagarjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.
Madhyamakāvatāra (Introduction to Madhyamaka), along with an auto-commentary, the
Madhyamakāvatāra-bhāśya (https://www2.hf.uio.no/polyglotta/index.php?page=volume&vid
=1113).[28] The Madhyamakāvatāra is used as the main sourcebook by most of the Tibetan
monastic colleges in their studies of Madhyamaka.
Catuúṣataka-ṭika (Commentary on the Four Hundred): a commentary on the Four Hundred
Verses of Aryadeva.[29]
Yuktiṣaṣṭhika-vṛtii (Commentary on the Sixty Stanzas on Reasoning), a commentary on
Nagarjuna's Yuktiṣaṣṭhika.
Śūnayatāsaptati-vṛtti (Commentary on the Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness), a commentary
on Nagarjuna's Śūnayatāsaptati.
Pañcaskandhaprakaraṇa (Discussion on the Five Aggregates).

Later Influence and Commentaries

Only one Indian commentary on Chandrakirti exists, a 12th-century commentary to the Madhyamakāvatāra
by the Kashmiri pandit Jayānanda.[30] An earlier Indian author, Prajñakaramati (950–1030) repeadately
cites the Madhyamakāvatāra in his commentary on Shantideva's Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra.[31] The work of
Atisha (982–1054), particularly his Introduction to the Two Truths (Satyadvayāvatāra), cites Chandrakirti
and defends his view which rejects the applicability of valid cognition (pramana) to ultimate truth.[32]

Another late Indian author which seems to have held Chandrakirti's position is Maitrīpadā (c. 1007–1085)
and he is held to be one of the sources of the Kagyu school's Prāsaṅgika lineage.[33] Chandrakirti is also
cited in some late Indian Buddhist tantric works, such as the Compendium of Good Sayings, indicating that
he may have been influential among Indian tantric authors, especially among the Arya lineage of the
Guhyasamaja tantra. The Arya lineage includes the works of tantric authors who go by the names
Nagarjuna, Aryadeva and Chandrakirti (the last two can be dated to the 9th or 10th centuries) and who
should not be confused with the earlier Madhyamaka philosophers.[34] Later Tibetan authors also began to
believe that the tantric figures and the Madhyamaka philosophers were the same persons.[35]

Another critical Indian author who refers to the work of Chandrakirti (and responds to it) is the later
Bhāvaviveka or Bhāvaviveka II (author of the Madhyamakārthasaṃgraha and the
Madhyamakaratnapradīpa), not to be confused with the first Bhāvaviveka (c. 500 – c. 578) who pre-dates
Chandrakirti and authored the Madhyamakahrdaya and the Prajñāpradīpa. According to Ruegg, this might
be the same person as the tantric Bhavyakīrti (c. 1000).[36]

The first Tibetan translation of Chandrakirti's Madhyamakāvatāra and its auto-commentary was completed
by Naktso Lotsawa, a student of Atisha.[37] Another early Tibetan commentator on Chandrakirti was Patsab
Nyima Drag (fl. 12th century), who also translator most of Chandra's major works.[38][39] The logician
Chapa Chökyi Sengé (12th century) is known for discussing the views of Chandrakirti and composing
refutations of them in his defense of the epistemological tradition of Dharmakirti.[39] Chapa's student,
Mabja Changchub Tsöndrü (1109–1169) is also another important early figure who wrote on
Chandrakirti.[13] Mabja's work attempted to harmonize Dharmakirti's epistemology with Chandrakirti's
Madhyamaka.[40] Chandrakirti was categorized by Tibetans as part of the Uma Thelgyur (Wylie: dbu ma
thal 'gyur) school, an approach to the interpretation of Madhyamaka philosophy typically back-translated
into Sanskrit as Prāsaṅgika or rendered in English as the "Consequentialist" or "Dialecticist" school.[41]

The influence of these early commentators lead to the increased popularity of Chandrakirti in Tibet. Later
important Tibetan Buddhist figures like Tsongkhapa, Wangchuk Dorje (the 9th Karmapa) and Jamgon
Mipham also wrote commentaries on the Madhyamakāvatāra.

Other Chandrakirtis
The Tibetan translation of Charyapada provided the name of its compiler as Munidatta, that its Sanskrit
commentary is Caryāgītikośavṛtti, and that its lotsawa "translator" was Chandrakirti. This is a later
Chandrakirti, who assisted in Tibetan translation in the Later Transmission of Buddhism to Tibet.

The author of the Triśaraṇasaptati (Seventy Verses on Taking Refuge) is also called Chandrakirti, but this
does not seem to be the same person as the 7th century Chandrakirti.[1] The same is the case with the author
of the Madhyamakāvatāra-prajñā.[1]

There is also another figure called Chandrakirti or Chandrakirtipada. This is the author of the
Pradīpoddyotana, a commentary on the Guhyasamāja Tantra. As such, he is sometimes called the "tantric
Chandrakirti".[1]

See also
Buddhapālita
Bhāviveka
Śāntideva

Notes
1. Buswell & Lopez 2013, Entry for Candrakīrti.
2. Vose 2015, pp. 3-4.
3. Vose 2015, pp. 2, 6.
4. Apple, James B. Candrakirti and Lotus sutra. Bulletin of the Institute of Oriental Philosophy,
Tōyō Tetsugaku Kenkyūjo Kiyō (The Journal of Oriental Studies), Tokyo No. 31, 2015,pp. 97-
122.
5. Edelglass 2013
6. Lang, Karen C. (2003). Four Illusions: Candrakīrti's Advice for Travelers on the Bodhisattva
Path, pp. 10-11. Oxford University Press.
 7. Jinpa, Thupten (translator); Tsongkhapa, 2021, p. 6.
8. Thakchoe 2017
9. Ruegg 1981, p. 72.
10. Padmakara Translation Group 2005, p. 28.
11. Hayes 2019
12. Padmakara Translation Group 2005, pp. 29-30.
13. Dunne, John. "Madhyamaka in India and Tibet"
14. Hayes, Richard, "Madhyamaka", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL =
<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/madhyamaka/>.
15. Vose 2015, p. 3.
16. Padmakara Translation Group 2005, pp. 20-21, 25.
17. Padmakara Translation Group 2005, p. 25.
18. Padmakara Translation Group 2005, p. 23.
19. Dreyfus & McClintock 2015, p. 82.
20. Dreyfus & McClintock 2015, pp. 82-83.
21. Newland 2009, p. 80.
22. Padmakara Translation Group 2005, pp. 26-27.
23. Padmakara Translation Group 2005, p. 24.
24. Ruegg 1981, p. 75.
25. Padmakara Translation Group 2005, pp. 24-27.
26. Fenner, Peter G. (1983). "Chandrakīrti's refutation of Buddhist idealism." Philosophy East
and West Volume 33, no.3 (July 1983) University of Hawaii Press. P.251. Source: [1] (http://c
cbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/fenner1.htm) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2009
1027071225/http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/fenner1.htm) 2009-10-27 at the
Wayback Machine (accessed: 21 January 2008)
27. Ruegg 1981, p. 73.
28. Ocean of Nectar: The True Nature of All Things, Tharpa Publications (1995) ISBN 978-0-
948006-23-4
29. Lang, Karen C. (2003). Four Illusions: Candrakīrti's Advice to Travelers on the Bodhisattva
Path. Oxford University Press.
30. Vose 2015, p. 6.
31. Vose 2015, p. 21.
32. Vose 2015, p. 24.
33. Vose 2015, p. 28.
34. Vose 2015, pp. 29-30.
35. Vose 2015, p. 31.
36. Vose 2015, p. 32.
37. Jinpa, Thupten (translator); Tsongkhapa, 2021, p. 8.
38. Dunne, John D. (2011). "Madhyamaka in India and Tibet." In Oxford Handbook of World
Philosophy." Edited by J. Garfield and W. Edelglass. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 206-
221.
39. Padmakara Translation Group 2005, p. 33.
40. Vose 2015, p. 9.
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Gyatso, Kelsang. Ocean of Nectar: The True Nature of All Things, a verse by verse
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External links
Geshe Jampa Gyatso - Masters Program Middle Way (http://www.fpmt.org/shop/product1.asp
x?SID=1&Product_ID=592&Category_ID=30)
Joe Wilson. Chandrakirti's Sevenfold Reasoning Meditation on the Selflessness of Persons
Candrakiirti's critique of Vijñaanavaada (https://web.archive.org/web/20091027065730/http://
ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/ew26114.htm), Robert F. Olson, Philosophy East and
West, Volume 24 No. 4, 1977, pp. 405–411
Candrakiirti's denial of the self (https://web.archive.org/web/20091027070749/http://ccbs.ntu.
edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/duerl1.htm), James Duerlinger, Philosophy East and West,
Volume 34 No. 3, July 1984, pp. 261–272
Chandrakiirti's refutation of Buddhist idealism (https://web.archive.org/web/2009102707122
5/http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/fenner1.htm), Peter G. Fenner, Philosophy East
and West, Volume 33 No. 3, July 1983, pp. 251–261
"Philosophical Nonegocentrism in Wittgenstein and Chandrakirti" (http://www.indology.net/ar
ticle29.html), Robert A. F. Thurman, Philosophy East and West, Volume 30 No. 3, July 1980,
 pp. 321–337

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