Chandragomin

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Chandragomin, Bangladesh, 12th century

File:11th-century Shisyalekha palm leaf mauscript, 5th-century CE Buddhist epistolary text by Candragomin, Devanagari script, Nepal talapatra.jpg

An 11th-century Shisyalekha manuscript, believed to be based on text authored in 5th-century CE by Chandragomin. It is a Buddhist Sanskrit text in the Devanagari script discovered in Nepal.

Chandragomin (Skt. Candragomin; Tib ཙནྡྲ་གོ་མིན་). The name of two important figures in classical Indian Buddhism:

• a Sanskrit grammarian in the 5th century, and
• a scholar and poet in the 7th century.

7th century Chandrogomin

Tibetan sources identify Chandragomin as a lay practitioner (upasaka), scholar, and poet who lived in the 7th century and engaged in a famous debate with the Nalanda scholar Chandrakirti.

According to the Tibetan tradition, the famous debate between Chandragomin and Chandrakirti occurred at Nalanda university and lasted for many years. In this debate, Chandragomin advocated the Vijñānavāda view, and Chandrakirti advocated the Madhyamaka view.

Works attributed to Chandragomin in Tibetan sources include:

• Twenty Vows of a Bodhisattva (Bodhisattvasaṃvaraviṃśaka)
• Letter to a Disciple (Śiṣyalekha)
• Confessional Praise (Deśanāstava)

Mark Tatz distinguishes the 7th century Candragomin for the 5th century scholar also known as Candragomin as follows:

...the philosopher–poet Candragomin, who flourished in the latter three quarters of the seventh century, is several centuries later than the grammarian Cāndra. Chandragomin may, as have other poets, done a study of grammar, but this is not the sūtra that has survived as the basis of Cāndra grammar."

Tatz suggests that this 7th century Chandragomin came from Eastern Bengal.

5th century Chandragomin

According to the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, an Indian scholar named Chandragomin lived in the 5th century and made substantial contributions to Sanskrit grammar, founding what was known as the Cāndra school. The Princeton Dictionary also states that he was one of the greatest poets of Indian Buddhism, and the author of the play Lokānanda (about the bodhisattva king Maṇicūḍa).

Further reading

• Geshe Sonam Rinchen, The Bodhisattva Vow, translated and edited by Ruth Sonam, Snow Lion, 2000
• Candragomin, Difficult Beginnings: Three Works on the Bodhisattva Path, translated, with commentary by Mark Tatz, Shambhala, 1985
• Chandragomin: Praise in Confession
• Candragomin, Tsadra Commons

External links

• Candrakiirti's critique of Vijñaanavaada, Robert F. Olson, Philosophy East and West, Volume 24 No. 4, 1977, pp. 405–411
• Candrakiirti's denial of the self, James Duerlinger, Philosophy East and West, Volume 34 No. 3, July 1984, pp. 261–272
• Candrakiirti's refutation of Buddhist idealism, Peter G. Fenner, Philosophy East and West, Volume 33 No. 3, July 1983, pp. 251–261