Chandrakirti

Life and Historical Context

Chandrakirti (Skt. Candrakīrti) was a significant 7th‑century Indian Buddhist philosopher associated with the Madhyamaka or “Middle Way” school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Very little is known with certainty about his life. Traditional sources place him in medieval India, probably in the first half of the 7th century CE, and identify him as a monastic scholar active within major Buddhist intellectual centers, possibly Nālandā or similar institutions. Precise details about his birthplace, monastic lineage, and the circumstances of his death remain uncertain due to the fragmentary historical record.

Later Tibetan doxographical traditions situate Chandrakirti within a lineage of interpreters of Nāgārjuna (c. 2nd–3rd c. CE), presenting him as a key defender of the “Prāsaṅgika” reading of Madhyamaka, in contrast to more “autonomist” (Svātantrika) currents. Although these labels were systematized only in Tibet centuries later, they reflect the perceived distinctiveness of Chandrakirti’s method and his refusal to advance independent syllogistic proofs about ultimate reality.

Principal Works

Several texts are attributed to Chandrakirti, though modern scholarship debates the authorship of some minor works. His most influential compositions include:

• Madhyamakāvatāra (Entrance to the Middle Way): A semi‑versified philosophical treatise that systematically presents Madhyamaka through the framework of the ten bodhisattva stages (bhūmis). It integrates rigorous philosophical analysis with the bodhisattva path, linking the realization of emptiness with the cultivation of compassion and ethical conduct.

• Madhyamakāvatāra-bhāṣya: A prose autocommentary on the Madhyamakāvatāra, providing detailed exegesis, argumentation, and clarification of often dense verses. Together, these two works form a central curriculum text in many later Tibetan monastic traditions.

• Prasannapadā (Clear Words): A comprehensive commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. This text elaborates Nāgārjuna’s terse verses on emptiness, dependent arising, and the two truths, while also engaging rival Indian Buddhist and non‑Buddhist philosophical schools. It served as one of the primary vehicles through which Nāgārjuna’s thought was transmitted and interpreted.

Other works attributed to him include commentaries on Āryadeva’s Catuḥśataka and various shorter treatises, but the Madhyamakāvatāra and Prasannapadā are generally regarded as his most decisive and historically impactful contributions.

Philosophical Themes and Method

Chandrakirti’s philosophy is anchored in a rigorously anti-essentialist interpretation of emptiness (śūnyatā) and dependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda). He argues that all phenomena—mental and physical, conventional and ultimate—are empty of intrinsic nature (svabhāva). This does not mean that nothing exists at all; rather, things exist only dependently, as conceptually designated phenomena within interrelated causal and conceptual networks.

A hallmark of Chandrakirti’s approach is his reliance on prāsaṅga, or reductio ad absurdum argumentation. Instead of asserting a positive metaphysical theory about reality, he examines his opponents’ positions and derives untenable consequences from them:

• Against Abhidharma and certain Sarvāstivāda schools, he challenges the idea that dharmas possess inherent existence across the three times.
• Against the Yogācāra (“Mind-Only”) tradition, he criticizes the tendency to privilege consciousness as ultimately real, arguing that such a move reintroduces a subtle essence or substrate.
• Against non‑Buddhist (e.g., Nyāya, Sāṃkhya) systems, he contests posited substances, selves, or universal essences as incoherent when analyzed rigorously.

In his reading, the “Middle Way” avoids the extremes of nihilism (denying all functioning and moral responsibility) and eternalism (positing fixed essences or a permanent self). Chandrakirti gives systematic form to the two truths doctrine:

• Conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya): The everyday, practical level at which persons, objects, ethical responsibilities, and causal relationships operate. Chandrakirti affirms the efficacy of conventional reality while denying that its constituents exist by their own intrinsic power.
• Ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya): The insight that all such conventions are empty of inherent nature. For Chandrakirti, ultimate truth is not a separate “thing” behind appearances but the emptiness of those very conventions.

He emphasizes that ultimate analysis does not yield a new metaphysical entity, but rather the negation of intrinsicality. At the same time, he underscores the inseparability of wisdom and compassion: the realization of emptiness fuels non‑clinging concern for others, since no being or event stands apart as independently fixed.

Later interpreters describe his stance, retrospectively, as Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka, in which:

• Emptiness is known primarily through reductio of all essentialist claims.
• One refrains from advancing independent syllogisms about ultimate reality.
• Conventional truth is maintained strictly as dependently designated, not as a subtler kind of intrinsic existence.

Some modern scholars question whether Chandrakirti himself would have endorsed the full systematic distinction between “Prāsaṅgika” and “Svātantrika,” yet agree that his writings exemplify a particularly stringent version of non‑reifying analysis.

Influence and Reception

Chandrakirti’s immediate impact in India appears to have been significant within certain scholastic circles, but it is primarily through Tibetan Buddhism that his long‑term influence is most visible. From the 11th century onwards, major Tibetan translators and scholars rendered his works into Tibetan, and his interpretation of Madhyamaka became canonical in several traditions.

In particular:

• The Geluk school, founded by Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), elevated Chandrakirti as the pre‑eminent authority on correct Madhyamaka, reading him as the definitive expositor of Nāgārjuna. Tsongkhapa’s own Middle Way writings draw heavily on Chandrakirti’s analyses of emptiness, conceptuality, and the two truths.
• Non‑Geluk traditions (such as Sakya, Kagyu, and Nyingma) also engaged deeply with Chandrakirti, sometimes affirming, sometimes critiquing aspects of Geluk interpretations based on his works. This produced rich intra‑Tibetan debates over the status of conventional truth, the role of reasoning, and the relationship between meditative experience and philosophical analysis.

In modern academic philosophy and religious studies, Chandrakirti is studied both as a pivotal expositor of classical Madhyamaka and as a sophisticated contributor to debates about language, reference, and metaphysics. Some contemporary interpreters draw comparisons between his anti-essentialism and strands of analytic philosophy (such as certain forms of anti‑realism or deflationary theories), while others stress the distinct soteriological and meditative context of his work.

Critics—historical and modern—have sometimes argued that his strict rejection of intrinsic nature risks sliding into global skepticism or nihilism, or that his use of purely negative dialectic fails to articulate a constructive account of reality. Proponents respond that Chandrakirti’s framework preserves everyday functioning and moral responsibility at the conventional level, while providing a powerful therapeutic critique of deeply ingrained reification.

Through these ongoing discussions, Chandrakirti continues to serve as a central reference point for understanding Buddhist conceptions of emptiness, reasoning, and liberation, and his writings remain foundational texts in both traditional Buddhist curricula and contemporary philosophical inquiry.