Kamalaśīla (Skt. Kamalaśīla; Tib. པདྨའི་ངང་ཚུལ་, Pemé Ngang Tsul; Wyl. pad+ma'i ngang tshul) (c. 740-795) was an
Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher of
Nalanda
Nalanda (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: , ) was a renowned Buddhism, Buddhist ''mahavihara'' (great monastery) in medieval Magadha (Mahajanapada), Magadha (modern-day Bihar), eastern India. Widely considered to be am ...
Mahavihara
Mahavihara () is the Sanskrit and Pali term for a great vihara (centre of learning or Buddhist monastery) and is used to describe a monastic complex of viharas.
Mahaviharas of India
A range of monasteries grew up in ancient Magadha (modern Biha ...
. Notably he accompanied
Śāntarakṣita
(Sanskrit: शान्तरक्षित; , 725–788),stanford.eduŚāntarakṣita (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)/ref> whose name translates into English as "protected by the One who is at peace" was an important and influential In ...
(725–788) to Tibet at the request of
Trisong Detsen
Trisong Detsen () was the son of Me Agtsom, the 37th king of Tibet. As the 38th king, he ruled from AD 755 until 797. Trisong Detsen was the second of the Three Dharma Kings of Tibet — Songsten Gampo, Trisong Detsen, Rapalchen — honored f ...
.
Kamalaśīla was a pivotal figure in the development of Indian
Mahayana
Mahāyāna ( ; , , ; ) is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, Buddhist texts#Mahāyāna texts, texts, Buddhist philosophy, philosophies, and practices developed in ancient India ( onwards). It is considered one of the three main ex ...
thought and made a number of original contributions in this field that demonstrated his knowledge of both Buddhist and non-Buddhist philosophies.
In addition to this, his role as a missionary for Indian Buddhism and his supposed victory in the
Debate of Samye helped shape the formation of
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, D ...
. His works spanned several genres and touched upon different schools of Buddhism including
Madhyamaka
Madhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; ; Tibetic languages, Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ་ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the Śūnyatā, emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no Svabhava, ''svabhāva'' d ...
as well as the traditions espoused by
Dignāga
Dignāga (also known as ''Diṅnāga'', ) was an Indian Buddhist philosopher and logician. He is credited as one of the Buddhism, Buddhist founders of Indian logic (''hetu vidyā'') and Buddhist atomism, atomism. Dignāga's work laid the grou ...
and
Dharmakirti
Dharmakīrti (fl. ;), was an influential Indian Buddhist philosopher who worked at Nālandā.Tom Tillemans (2011)Dharmakirti Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy He was one of the key scholars of epistemology ( pramāṇa) in Buddhist philo ...
.
Biography
Much of what we know of Kamalaśīla's life comes from later
Tibetan sources which are comparatively late and therefore problematic.
Tibetan sources refer to him, Santaraksita and
Jñānagarbha
Jñānagarbha (Sanskrit: ज्ञानगर्भ, Tibetan: ཡེ་ཤེས་སྙིང་པོ་, Wyl. ye shes snying po) was an 8th-century Buddhist philosopher from Nalanda Monastery who wrote on Madhyamaka and Yogacara and is cons ...
as ''rang rgyud shar gsum'' meaning the “three eastern Svātantrikas” indicating their origins from Eastern India.
Little else is provided as to his life prior to travelling to
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...
aside from that he studied under Santaraksita in
Nalanda
Nalanda (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: , ) was a renowned Buddhism, Buddhist ''mahavihara'' (great monastery) in medieval Magadha (Mahajanapada), Magadha (modern-day Bihar), eastern India. Widely considered to be am ...
and arrived in Tibet at the invitations of King
Trisong Detsen
Trisong Detsen () was the son of Me Agtsom, the 37th king of Tibet. As the 38th king, he ruled from AD 755 until 797. Trisong Detsen was the second of the Three Dharma Kings of Tibet — Songsten Gampo, Trisong Detsen, Rapalchen — honored f ...
after 788 CE after his teachers death.
Debate of Samye
In 793 Trisong Detsen resolved that
Moheyan did not hold the true
dharma
Dharma (; , ) is a key concept in various Indian religions. The term ''dharma'' does not have a single, clear Untranslatability, translation and conveys a multifaceted idea. Etymologically, it comes from the Sanskrit ''dhr-'', meaning ''to hold ...
. Following intense protests from Moheyan's supporters, Trisong Detsen proposed to settle the matter by sponsoring a debate, the "Council of
Lhasa
Lhasa, officially the Chengguan District of Lhasa City, is the inner urban district of Lhasa (city), Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region, Southwestern China.
Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining ...
", although it may actually have taken place at
Samye, a considerable distance from Lhasa. Kamalaśila was invited to represent
Vajrayana
''Vajrayāna'' (; 'vajra vehicle'), also known as Mantrayāna ('mantra vehicle'), Guhyamantrayāna ('secret mantra vehicle'), Tantrayāna ('tantra vehicle'), Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, is a Mahāyāna Buddhism, Mahāyāna Buddhis ...
while Moheyan represented the
East Mountain Teaching of
Chan Buddhism
Chan (; of ), from Sanskrit '' dhyāna'' (meaning " meditation" or "meditative state"), is a Chinese school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It developed in China from the 6th century CE onwards, becoming especially popular during the Tang and Song ...
. Most Tibetan sources state that the debate was decided in Kamalaśīla's favour (though many Chinese sources claim Moheyan won)
[Powers 2004, pp. 38–44] and Moheyan was required to leave the country and that all sudden-enlightenment texts were gathered and destroyed by royal decree. This was a pivotal event in the history of
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, D ...
, which would afterwards continue to follow the late Indian model with only minor influence from China. Moheyan's teachings were a mixture of the East Mountain Teachings associated with
Yuquan Shenxiu and with the teachings of
Baotang Wuzhu.
It is said that following his victory, Kamalasila was murdered by three butchers who killed him by squeezing his kidneys.
Sources disagree as to whether the killers were assassins hired by Moheyan or non-Buddhists who were against the rise of Buddhism in
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...
.
The Cham dance
There is a
Cham dance that retells the story of the Council of Lhasa related to the teachings of
Chöd. Moheyan is generally depicted as of ample girth, goaded by children. Chöd is a product of both the Indian and Chinese transmissions of Buddhism into the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...
. For a discussion of the
Dunhuang
Dunhuang () is a county-level city in northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Sachu (Dunhuang) was ...
fulcrum of the entwined relationship of Chinese and Indian Buddhism see van Schaik and Dalton (2004).
For simplicity, the Vajrayana transmission may be characterised as "gradual" (; Chinese: ''dunwu'') and the Chan as "direct" (; Chinese: ''jianwu''). It needs to be emphasised that this neat
dichotomy
A dichotomy () is a partition of a set, partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets). In other words, this couple of parts must be
* jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and
* mutually exclusive: nothi ...
in characterisation of these two approaches is only valid for the historical context of the great debate between Kamalaśīla and Moheyan and even then it is still open to
dialectic
Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the ...
.
According to the lore of the orthodox, prevailing Tibetan cultural tradition, Kamalaśīla, a scholar educated at
Nalanda
Nalanda (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: , ) was a renowned Buddhism, Buddhist ''mahavihara'' (great monastery) in medieval Magadha (Mahajanapada), Magadha (modern-day Bihar), eastern India. Widely considered to be am ...
, advocated the "gradual" process to enlightenment; whereas, Moheyan, as a
trance
Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...
and
meditation
Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditat ...
master, advocated the "direct" awakening of original mind through the
nirodha of discursive thought, the cessation of the mind of
ideation. The historicity of this debate has been drawn into question by Tucci & Heissig (1970), Gomez (1983) and Ruegg (1992) though this does not lessen its importance in defining the religious and cultural traditions of Tibet. Kamalaśīla was very handsome and a great orator and historically "won" the debate: though there are conflicting primary sources and secondary accounts.
One hagiography asserts that directly after this debate with Moheyan, as Kamalaśīla was making his way down from the Himalayas to the Indian lowlands, he was incited to enact
phowa
''Phowa'' (, ) is a tantric practice found in both Hinduism and Buddhism. It may be described as "transference of consciousness at the time of death", " mindstream transference", "the practice of conscious dying", or "enlightenment without medit ...
through compassionate duress, transferring his
mindstream to animate a corpse polluted with a dangerous
infection
An infection is the invasion of tissue (biology), tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host (biology), host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmis ...
and thereby safely moving the hazard it presented to a nearby community. As the mindstream of Kamalaśīla was otherwise engaged, a
mahasiddha
Mahasiddha (Sanskrit: ''mahāsiddha'' "great adept; ) is a term for someone who embodies and cultivates the "siddhi of perfection". A siddha is an individual who, through the practice of sādhanā, attains the realization of siddhis, psychic and ...
by the name of
Dampa Sangye came across the vacant body of Kamalaśīla. Padampa Sangye was not karmically blessed with an aesthetic corporeal form, and upon finding the very handsome and healthy empty body of Kamalaśīla, which he perceived as a newly dead fresh corpse, transferred his mindstream into Kamalaśīla's body. Padampa Sangye's mindstream in Kamalaśīla's body continued the ascent to the Himalaya and thereby transmitted the Chöd.
The mindstream of Kamalaśīla, upon endeavouring to return to his body, was unable to do so and resorted by necessity to the vacant body of Padampa Sangye. The mindstream of Padampa Sangye continued in this body, and it is in this handsome body that the transmission of Chöd was made to
Machig Labdrön, his consort.
Lineage
Dargyay, ''et al.'' (1977, 1998: p. 7) convey a lineage of transmission and translation of
Śīla
Buddhist ethics are traditionally based on the Enlightenment in Buddhism, enlightened perspective of the Buddha. In Buddhism, ethics or morality are understood by the term ''śīla'' () or ''sīla'' (Pāli). ''Śīla'' is one of three sections o ...
,
Sutrayana Buddhavacana
Buddhist texts are religious texts that belong to, or are associated with, Buddhism and Schools of Buddhism, its traditions. There is no single textual collection for all of Buddhism. Instead, there are three main Buddhist Canons: the Pāli C ...
and the Six
Pāramitā
''Pāramitā'' (Sanskrit, Pali: पारमिता) or ''pāramī'' (Pāli: पारमी) is a Buddhist term often translated as "perfection". It is described in Buddhist commentaries as a noble character quality generally associated with ...
(viewed principally through the
Mahayana
Mahāyāna ( ; , , ; ) is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, Buddhist texts#Mahāyāna texts, texts, Buddhist philosophy, philosophies, and practices developed in ancient India ( onwards). It is considered one of the three main ex ...
teachings of
Nagarjuna
Nāgārjuna (Sanskrit: नागार्जुन, ''Nāgārjuna''; ) was an Indian monk and Mahayana, Mahāyāna Buddhist Philosophy, philosopher of the Madhyamaka (Centrism, Middle Way) school. He is widely considered one of the most importa ...
), from India to Tibet (
pandit
A pandit (; ; also spelled pundit, pronounced ; abbreviated Pt. or Pdt.) is an individual with specialised knowledge or a teacher of any field of knowledge in Hinduism, particularly the Vedic scriptures, dharma, or Hindu philosophy; in colonial-e ...
in this context denotes a
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
scholar):
Works
Trilogy of ''Stages of Meditation'' (''bhāvanākrama'')
Kamalaśīla is renowned for writing three texts, all called ''
Bhāvanākrama'' (''Stages of Meditation''), which summarize and build upon aspects of the
Yogacara
Yogachara (, IAST: ') is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through the interior lens of meditation, as well as philosophical reasoning (hetuvidyā). ...
tradition of
Asanga
Asaṅga (Sanskrit: असंग, , ; Romaji: ''Mujaku'') (fl. 4th century C.E.) was one of the most important spiritual figures of Mahayana Buddhism and the founder of the Yogachara school.Engle, Artemus (translator), Asanga, ''The Bodhisattva P ...
, particularly as pertaining to aspects of meditation practice and mental cultivation (
bhavana). The first volume was translated into Classic Chinese.
Though they had different purposes, Kamalaśīla’s three Bhāvanākramas can be regarded as counterparts of Wang Xi’s Dunwu Dasheng zhengli jue reflecting one of the protagonists’ arguments and strategy during the controversy.
The Bhāvanākramas can be regarded as one of his best studied works. All three Bhāvanākramas have been preserved in the
Madhyamaka
Madhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; ; Tibetic languages, Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ་ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the Śūnyatā, emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no Svabhava, ''svabhāva'' d ...
section of the
Tengyur and translated into English; the Sanskrit and the Tibetan versions of the first Bhāvanākrama have been edited and translated by
Giuseppe Tucci; the Tibetan text of the second Bhāvanākrama has been edited by Goshima in 1983; the third Bhāvanākrama has been translated by
Étienne Lamotte
Étienne Paul Marie Lamotte (; 21 November 1903 – 5 May 1983) was a Belgian priest and Professor of Greek at the Catholic University of Louvain, but was better known as an Indologist and the greatest authority on Buddhism in the West in his ...
.
The three Bhāvanākramas are Kamalaśīla’s most influential works on
meditation
Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditat ...
and there associated practices. All three of the texts overlap with each other and all of them rely on a combination of rational analysis and scriptural citation to establish his understanding of the path of spiritual advancement. Various religious texts are cited in the three Bhāvanākramas including the
Sandhinirmocana, Ratnamegha Sutra,
Samadhiraja Sutra,
Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra
The ''Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra'' (Sanskrit: लङ्कावतारसूत्रम्, "Discourse of the Descent into Laṅkā", , Chinese: 入楞伽經) is a prominent Mahayana Buddhist sūtra. It is also titled ''Laṅkāvatāraratnasūt ...
and the Ratnakūṭa sūtras.
Commentary on Madhyamālaṃkāra
(Sanskrit: Madhyamālaṃkāra-panjika, Wylie: dbu ma rgyan gyi dka' 'grel)
''Commentary on Difficult Points'' (Sanskrit: Madhyamālaṃkāra-panjika, Wylie: dbu ma rgyan gyi dka' 'grel) by Kamalaśīla
Location
There is an ongoing debate about whether Kamalaśīla composed his works in India or Tibet. Tibetan sources including the ''Testimony of Ba'' hold that Kamalaśīla composed the ''Madhyamakāloka'' and the first two ''Bhāvanākramas'' in Tibet at the request of Emperor Trisong Detsen and that he personally presented the completed works to him which greatly pleased him. The scholar, Birgit Kellner, believes these claims deserve to be taken seriously, but not literally. The ''Madhyamakāloka'' for example does not receive any reception in India itself until the 12th century in the ''Munimatālaṅkāra'' by
Abhayakaragupta. The biography of
Atiśa also indicates that he was the first Indian master to discover the work while in Tibet and he subsequently sent a copy back with himself to India.
See also
*
Nagarjuna
Nāgārjuna (Sanskrit: नागार्जुन, ''Nāgārjuna''; ) was an Indian monk and Mahayana, Mahāyāna Buddhist Philosophy, philosopher of the Madhyamaka (Centrism, Middle Way) school. He is widely considered one of the most importa ...
*
Bhāvanākrama
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
Notes
References
Sources
*
*Tucci, G. and Heissig, W. (1970). ''Die Religionen Tibets und der Mongolei''. Stuttgart.
*
External links
The Tattvasangraha (with commentary)English translation by Ganganatha Jha, 1937 (includes glossary)
{{Authority control
Indian Buddhist monks
8th-century Buddhist monks
Indian scholars of Buddhism
Madhyamaka scholars
History of Tibetan Buddhism
Buddhist logic
Indian logicians
8th-century Indian philosophers
Scholars from Bihar
Monks of Nalanda