Abhayākaragupta

PersonType	Category:Classical Indian Authors
MainNamePhon	Abhayākaragupta
MainNameTib	འཇིགས་མེད་འབྱུང་གནས་
MainNameWylie	'jigs med 'byung gnas
MainNameSkt	Abhayākara
AltNamesTib	ཨ་བྷ་ཡཱ་ཀ་ར་གུཔྟ་  ·  འཇིགས་མེད་འབྱུང་གནས་སྦས་པ་  ·  པཎྜི་ཏ་ཨ་བྷ་ཡཱ་ཀ་ར་གུཔྟ་
AltNamesWylie	a b+ha yA ka ra gup+ta  ·  'jigs med 'byung gnas sbas pa  ·  paN+Di ta a b+ha yA ka ra gup+ta
AltNamesOther	Abhayākaragupta  ·  Paṇḍita Abhayākaragupta
YearBirth	11th century
YearDeath	circa 1125
BDRC	https://www.tbrc.org/#!rid=P0RK166
IsInGyatsa	No
BnwShortPersonBio	Indian tantric Buddhist master who was born into a brāhmaṇa family in either Orissa or northeast India near Bengal. Sources vary regarding his dates of birth and death, although most agree that he was a contemporary of the Pāla king Rāmapāla, who began his reign during the final quarter of the eleventh century. Abhayākaragupta became a Buddhist monk in response to a prophetic vision and trained extensively in the esoteric practices of tantra, while nevertheless maintaining his monastic discipline (vinaya). Abhayākaragupta was active at the monastic university of Vikramaśīla in Bihar and became renowned as both a scholar and a teacher. He was a prolific author, composing treatises in numerous fields of Buddhist doctrine, including monastic discipline and philosophy as well as tantric ritual practice and iconography. Many Sanskrit manuscripts of his works have been preserved in India, Nepal, and Tibet, and his writings were influential both in India and among Newari Buddhists in Nepal. Translations of his works into Tibetan were begun under his supervision, and more than two dozen are preserved in the Tibetan canon. To date, Abhayākaragupta’s writings best known in the West are his treatises on tantric iconography, the Vajrãvalī and Niṣpannayogāvalī, and his syncretistic abhidharma treatise Munimatãlaṃkāra. (Source: "Abhayākaragupta." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 2. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
PosYogaMadhya	Madhyamaka
PosYogaMadhyaNotes	Kano, K., Buddha-Nature and Emptiness, p. 109; he cites Ruegg for this, and agrees.
PosVehicles	1
PosVehiclesNotes	Kano, K., Buddha-Nature and Emptiness, p. 110.
PosEmptyLuminNotes	Buddha-nature is equivalent to selflessness of the dharmatā. This is not the same as b-n = emptiness. Kano explains that this is a precursor to that position. Kano, K., Buddha-Nature and Emptiness, p. 111 et passim.
PosSvataPrasa	Svātantrika (རང་རྒྱུད་)
PosSvataPrasaNotes	Kano, K., Buddha-Nature and Emptiness, p. 109: he cites Khedrubje for this designation.
PosVajrapada	the first three are causes of the later four
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Tantra, when juxtaposed with Sūtra, generally refers to the scriptures and texts which discuss esoteric topics. While the term is used to refer to texts on other topics, it is mostly used to refer to the genre of scriptures and texts on themes and topics associated with Vajrayāna Buddhism.

Vinaya refers to the corpus of Buddhist teachings on moral discipline and precepts and is one of the three canonical sets of teachings alongside Sūtra and Abhidharma. It also refers to the monastic tradition which has been passed down since the Buddha's time until our time.

Abhidharma generally refers to the corpus of Buddhist texts which deals with the typological, phenomenological, metaphysical, and epistemological presentation of Buddhist concepts and teachings. The abhidharma teachings present a meta-knowledge of Buddhist sūtras through analytical and systemic schemas and are said to focus on developing wisdom among the three principles of training. The Abhidharma is presented alongside Sūtra and Vinaya as one of the three baskets of the teachings of the Buddha.

Along with Yogācāra, it is one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Nāgārjuna around the second century CE, it is rooted in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, though its initial exposition was presented in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

The nonexistence of the self as a permanent, unchanging entity.

The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics.