Candrakīrti

Candrakīrti (Sanskrit: चन्द्रकीर्ति; Tibetan: ཟླ་བ་གྲགས་པ་ Dawa Drakpa, literally “Fame of the Moon”) was a 7th-century Indian Buddhist philosopher and master of the Madhyamaka, or “Middle Way,” school founded by Nāgārjuna. He is regarded as the most important interpreter of Nāgārjuna’s *Mūlamadhyamakakārikā* (“Root Verses on the Middle Way”), offering profound and accessible commentaries that shaped the course of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. Born in South India, possibly in Samanta (modern-day Andhra Pradesh), Candrakīrti was a monk and scholar at the famed Nālandā University, where he both studied and taught.

He is best known for his works Madhyamakāvatāra (“Entrance to the Middle Way”) and its Bhāṣya (commentary), which present the Bodhisattva’s journey through the ten stages (bhūmis) and articulate a subtle, non-reifying understanding of emptiness (śūnyatā). Candrakīrti emphasized the Prāsaṅgika approach—using reductio arguments to deconstruct conceptual extremes—over the more affirmative Svātantrika style. His insistence that ultimate truth transcends all conceptual elaboration profoundly influenced later Tibetan philosophy, especially the works of Je Tsongkhapa and the Gelug school. Candrakīrti’s luminous clarity and compassionate reasoning made him a central figure in the transmission of Madhyamaka thought, and his writings continue to be revered as both rigorous philosophical treatises and guides to direct realization of nondual wisdom.

Placement among Buddhist schools

Candrakīrti is a central exponent of Madhyamaka, especially what later Tibetan traditions call Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka. He defends and elaborates Nāgārjuna’s view that all dharmas are empty (śūnya) of intrinsic nature and is particularly critical of interpretations that grant any ultimately real status to consciousness (as in some readings of Cittamātra) or to Abhidharma dharmas (as in Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika realism).

Within the grid of Vaibhāṣika / Sautrāntika / Cittamātra / Madhyamaka, Candrakīrti is firmly Madhyamaka (Prāsaṅgika): he makes extensive use of Abhidharma and Sautrāntika analyses as conventional descriptions, yet insists that neither external objects nor mind, nor even emptiness itself, possess intrinsic existence.