Kumāralāta (3rd century) was an Indian founder of the

Sautrāntika The Sautrāntika or Sutravadin (, Suttavāda in Pali; ; ; ) were an early Buddhist school generally believed to be descended from the Sthavira nikāya by way of their immediate parent school, the Sarvāstivādins.Westerhoff, Jan, The Golden Ag ...

school of Buddhism.

Biography

He was a native of

Taxila Taxila or Takshashila () is a city in the Pothohar region of Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and is just south of the ...

. According to the Chinese sources, he moved to

Kabandha In Hinduism, Kabandha (, , lit. "headless torso") is a Rakshasa (demon) who is killed and freed from a curse by the god Rama – an Avatar of Vishnu – and his brother Lakshmana. Kabandha's legend appears in the Hindu epics ''Ramayana'' and ''Ma ...

, where the king of the country gave him a splendid monastery in an old palace. He was known all over the Buddhist world for his genius, great learning and abilities; he also had influence on the development of

Japanese Buddhism Buddhism was first established in Japan in the 6th century CE. Most of the Japanese Buddhists belong to new schools of Buddhism which were established in the Kamakura period (1185－1333). During the Edo period (1603–1868), Buddhism was cont ...

. He was considered one of the "four Suns illuminating the world", other three being

Aśvaghoṣa , also Devanagari transliteration, transliterated Ashvaghosha (, ; lit. "Having a Horse-Voice"; ; ) ( Common Era, CE), was a Buddhist philosopher, dramatist, poet, musician, and orator from India. He was born in Saketa, today known as Ayodhya. ...

Aryadeva Āryadeva (fl. 3rd century CE) (; , Chinese: 提婆菩薩 ''Tipo pusa'' meaning Deva Bodhisattva), was a Mahayana Buddhist monk, a disciple of Nagarjuna and a Madhyamaka philosopher.Silk, Jonathan A. (ed.) (2019). ''Brill’s Encyclopedia of ...

and

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 ...

Works

The founding of the Sautrāntika school is attributed to the elder Kumāralāta (c. 3rd century CE), author of a "collection of dṛṣtānta" (''Dṛṣtāntapaṅkti'') called the ''Kalpanāmaṇḍitīkā''. The Sautrāntikas were sometimes also called "disciples of Kumāralāta". According to the Chinese sources, Harivarman (250-350 CE) was a student of Kumāralāta who became disillusioned with Buddhist

Abhidharma The Abhidharma are a collection of Buddhist texts dating from the 3rd century BCE onwards, which contain detailed scholastic presentations of doctrinal material appearing in the canonical Buddhist scriptures and commentaries. It also refers t ...

and then wrote the

Tattvasiddhi The ''Tattvasiddhi-Śāstra'' ("The Treatise that Accomplishes Reality"; , also reconstructed as ''Satyasiddhi-Śāstra''), is an Indian Abhidharma Buddhist text by a figure known as Harivarman (250–350). It was translated into Chinese in 411 ...

-śāstra in order to "eliminate confusion and abandon the later developments, with the hope of returning to the origin". This writing then formed the basis of formation of Jōjitsu school of

. Kumāralāta's work Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā Dṛṣṭāntapaṅkti (“Garland of Examples,” henceforth Kumāralāta's Garland) reflects an urgent statement of the core values of

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

urban businesspeople. According to Loukota Sanclemente and Diego, it emphasize both religious piety and the pursuit of wealth, a concern for social respectability, a strong work ethic, and an emphasis on rational decision-making. These values inform Kumāralāta's religious vision of poverty and wealth. His vision of religious giving conjugates economic behavior and religious doctrine, and the outcome is a model that confers religious legitimation to the pursuit of wealth but also an economic outlet for religious fervor and a solid financial basis for the monastic establishment, depicted by Kumāralāta in close interdependence with the laity and, most importantly, within the same social class.

References

{{reflist People from Gandhara Indian scholars of Buddhism 3rd-century Indian philosophers Taxila Tehsil

Biography

Works

See also

References