Dharmapāla (
traditional Chinese
A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...
: 護法,
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
: Hùfǎ) (530–561 CE). A
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
scholar, he was one of the main teachers of the
Yogacara
Yogachara ( sa, योगाचार, IAST: '; literally "yoga practice"; "one whose practice is yoga") is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through t ...
school in India. He was a contemporary of
Bhavaviveka (清辯, c. 490-570 CE.), with whom he debated.
Xuanzang
Xuanzang (, ; 602–664), born Chen Hui / Chen Yi (), also known as Hiuen Tsang, was a 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of ...
, the famous Chinese pilgrim, tells that Dharmapāla was born in Kanchipuram,
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...
. He was a son of a high official, and betrothed to a daughter of the king, but escaped on the eve of the wedding feast, entered the order, studied all views, from
Hinayana
Hīnayāna (, ) is a Sanskrit term literally meaning the "small/deficient vehicle". Classical Chinese and Tibetan teachers translate it as "smaller vehicle". The term is applied collectively to the ''Śrāvakayāna'' and ''Pratyekabuddhayāna'' pa ...
as well as
Mahayana
''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing bra ...
, and attained to reverence and distinction. He studied in
Nalanda
Nalanda (, ) was a renowned ''mahavihara'' (Buddhist monastic university) in ancient Magadha (modern-day Bihar), India.[Dignāga
Dignāga (a.k.a. ''Diṅnāga'', c. 480 – c. 540 CE) was an Indian Buddhist scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian logic (''hetu vidyā''). Dignāga's work laid the groundwork for the development of deductive logic in India and cr ...]
. Later he succeeded him as abbot of the University. He spent his last years near the Bodhi tree, where he died.
Dharmapāla developed the theory that the external things do not exist and
consciousness only exists. He explains the manifestation of the phenomenal world as arising from the eight consciousness.
Through the teachings of his disciple
Silabhadra to Xuanzang, Dharmapāla’s tenets expanded greatly in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
.
According to Chinese sources, Dharmapala wrote four works. One of these is a lost work on grammar. The other three, which only survive in Chinese, are the following commentaries:
[Edelglass, William; Harter, Pierre-Julien; McClintock, Sara (2022). ''The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy'' (Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy), pp. 361-362.]
* ''A Commentary on the Four-Hundred Verses'' (''Dasheng guang bailun shilun'' 大乘廣百論 釋論; T1571, in 10 fascicles): a commentary on the ''Four-Hundred Verses'' (''Catuḥśataka'') of
Āryadeva
Āryadeva (fl. 3rd century CE) (; , Chinese: ''Tipo pusa'' 婆 菩薩 = Deva Bodhisattva, was a Mahayana Buddhist monk, a disciple of Nagarjuna and a Madhyamaka philosopher.Silk, Jonathan A. (ed.) (2019). ''Brill’s Encyclopedia of Budd ...
(c. third century).
* ''Jewel-Arising Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only'' (''Cheng weishi baosheng lun'' 成唯識寶生論; T1591, in 5 fascicles), a commentary on
Vasubandhu’s ''Twenty Verses'' (''Viṃśikā'').
* ''A Commentary on the Investigation of Cognitive Objects'' (''Guan suoyuan lun shi'' 觀所緣 論釋; T1625, in 1 fascicle;), commentary on
Dignāga’s ''Investigation of Cognitive Objects'' (''Ālambanaparīkṣā'').
References
{{Authority control
Indian Buddhists
Indian scholars of Buddhism
6th-century Indian philosophers
Yogacara scholars
People from Kanchipuram district
Scholars from Tamil Nadu
6th-century Indian writers
Monks of Nalanda