Nalanda Mahavihara

The most important philosopher in Buddhist history after the Buddha himself. His Mūlamadhyamakakārikā demonstrated through rigorous argument that no phenomenon — causation, time, motion, selfhood, nirvana itself — possesses svabhāva: inherent, independent existence. Crucially, emptiness itself is empty: if Śūnyatā were a positive ultimate truth, it would be a new absolute, which Nāgārjuna argues against with the same rigour he applies to everything else.

Nāgārjuna’s principal disciple, who extended the Madhyamaka tradition into systematic refutation of all competing philosophical schools. His Catuḥśataka (“Four Hundred Verses”) attacks Buddhist and non-Buddhist positions alike, demonstrating in each case that the position cannot be coherently maintained on its own terms. The Madhyamaka lineage — Nāgārjuna to Āryadeva to Candrakīrti — is the spine of the Nalanda philosophical tradition.

The only major philosopher in the Nalanda tradition who explicitly changed his fundamental position — and changed it radically. In his first phase he wrote the Abhidharmakośa, the comprehensive account of Sarvastivadin Buddhist metaphysics, while privately sympathising with Sautrāntika objections. Converted by his brother Asaṅga to Yogācāra, he then argued for vijnaptimatratā: experience consists of representations only, not of independently existing external objects.

Co-founder of the Yogācāra school whose Mahāyānasaṃgraha answered the question the Abhidharma tradition could not: what is the basis of continuity of consciousness across momentary mental events and across lifetimes, without positing a permanent self? His answer: the ālayavijñāna — a storehouse consciousness carrying karmic seeds without being a self in any metaphysical sense.

The founder of Buddhist logic and epistemology as a formal discipline. His Pramāṇasamuccaya established the framework for all subsequent Buddhist epistemology: exactly two valid sources of knowledge — perception and inference — and nothing else. His Hetucakra mapped every possible logical relationship between a reason and its target. His apoha theory of meaning — that a word refers by excluding everything it does not denote — is one of the most sophisticated theories of meaning in any philosophical tradition.

The great systematiser of Buddhist logic whose Pramāṇavārttika extended and radicalised Dignāga’s system. His central criterion of reality: what is real is what is causally efficacious. Universals, enduring substances, the self — most of what we ordinarily take to be real fails this test. Tibetan Buddhist philosophy is, substantially, the extended commentary on Dharmakīrti.

The philosopher who definitively systematised the Prāsaṅgika interpretation of Madhyamaka — the reading of Nāgārjuna that became standard in Tibetan Buddhism. His Madhyamakāvatāra opens with the claim that compassion is simultaneously seed, water, and fruit of the bodhisattva path. Against Bhāvaviveka, he argued that drawing out the absurd consequences of an opponent’s own premises is both necessary and sufficient — Madhyamikas need no independent syllogisms.

A monk of Nalanda whose Bodhicaryāvatāra is the most beloved Mahāyāna text after the canonical scriptures: simultaneously devotional poem, philosophical treatise on emptiness, and practical guide to bodhicitta. The argument of chapter six on patience is among the most rigorous in any ethical tradition: if suffering arises from causes, anger at the person is as irrational as anger at the stick. Chapter nine on wisdom is one of the most condensed statements of Madhyamaka philosophy ever written.

The philosopher who built the most systematic synthesis of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka, then left India to become the first abbot of Samyé, Tibet’s first monastery. His Tattvasamgraha systematically examines and refutes every major philosophical position available in 8th-century India. He recommended Padmasambhava to the Tibetan king; together they established Samyé and the translation bureau that preserved Nalanda’s texts in Tibetan — ensuring that when Nalanda was destroyed, the tradition survived.

The Chinese Buddhist monk who walked from Chang’an to Nalanda and back — seventeen years, approximately 25,000 kilometres — and whose Da Tang Xiyu Ji is the most detailed eyewitness account of Nalanda at its height. He studied under the abbot Śīlabhadra, mastered Sanskrit, and returned to China with 657 Buddhist texts he spent the rest of his life translating. He is the only simulacrum in this department whose primary value is not philosophical argument but testimony: he was there, he saw it, he wrote it down.

The last great master of Nalanda, who carried the tradition to Tibet for a second time as a restorer rather than an exporter. The king of western Tibet sent three men to invite him; two died in the attempt. His Bodhipathapradīpa reorganised the entire Buddhist path into three scopes. Every subsequent Tibetan lam rim text — including Tsongkhapa’s Lam Rim Chenmo — is a commentary on it. He is the last link between the living Nalanda tradition and its Tibetan continuation.

The oldest voice. The Pali Canon preserves the Buddha’s teaching as transmitted by the Theravāda tradition — the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, dependent origination, the three marks of existence. This is the Buddha before the commentaries, before the schools, before the philosophical elaborations. Nalanda was the institution that turned this teaching into a philosophical tradition of extraordinary rigour; the Buddha himself preceded it by a millennium.

The Buddha thinking through emptiness. The Divinity School’s Madhyamaka simulacrum, oriented toward the contemplative and devotional dimensions of Nāgārjuna’s work. Complement to the Nalanda-specific Nāgārjuna above, which emphasises the philosophical argument.

The Buddha as compassion in action. The Divinity School’s simulacrum of the Nalanda monk, oriented toward the devotional and practice dimensions of the Bodhicaryāvatāra. Complement to the Nalanda-specific Śāntideva above.

Said to have studied at Nalanda before carrying the tradition to Tibet. He and Śāntarakṣita together established Samyé monastery and the translation bureau that ensured Nalanda’s texts survived its destruction. Founder of the Nyingma, the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism.