Candrakirti
Buddhist · South Asia · 600 to 650
Indian Buddhist writer who defended Nagarjuna's approach. He shaped later Tibetan Buddhist thought.
What it is
Candrakirti was a Buddhist scholar of the Madhyamaka school, the school of the middle way, who is placed at the beginning of the seventh century and was based at the monastery of Nalanda. He was a noted commentator on the works of Nagarjuna and of Nagarjuna's main disciple, Aryadeva.
Very little is known about his life. He is known through two influential works on Madhyamaka: the Prasannapada, a commentary on Nagarjuna's central verses, and the Madhyamakavatara, an independent verse treatise with his own prose commentary. In the Prasannapada he criticises Bhavaviveka and defends Buddhapalita.
The main ideas
- Everything is empty of inherent nature. Like Nagarjuna, he held that all phenomena lack any inherent nature, so that nothing exists on its own, independent of causes and conditions.
- Argue by consequences. He held that the Madhyamaka should show the unwelcome consequences of every possible position on a given question, and not put forward independent arguments of its own for emptiness.
- Against independent arguments. He criticised Bhavaviveka, who had argued for producing such independent arguments, and defended Buddhapalita against him.
- Two truths. He worked within the framework of two truths, the conventional and the ultimate, as the school did.
What it looks like in practice
Picture two friends arguing over whether a coin toss is fair, one claiming it is and the other claiming it is not. A follower of Candrakirti would not defend a third claim. They would trace what follows from each of the two claims until both break down, and let that breakdown do the work. This is an illustration of the method, not a quotation.
Books and moments
- The Prasannapada is his commentary on Nagarjuna's central verses and survives in Sanskrit and Tibetan.
- The Madhyamakavatara is an independent treatise in verse, with his own prose commentary, and survives in Tibetan.
- His shorter commentaries on Nagarjuna and Aryadeva add to the two main works.
Questions and criticism
- Is there a Prasangika school? Tibetan scholars later named his approach Prasangika and Bhavaviveka's Svatantrika, though Indian thinkers did not use those terms, and modern scholars still debate how much to rely on the division.
- Can one argue without a position? His method of showing consequences without defending a thesis is admired and also questioned as a way of avoiding commitment.
- How much do we know? The sources on his life are very thin, so the picture of him rests mostly on his writings.
Close neighbours
He interpreted Nagarjuna and Aryadeva, and Tibetan scholars made him a founder of one branch of Madhyamaka. The pages on Nagarjuna and Madhyamaka set out the school he worked in.
Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 9 October 2026. The sources are listed below.
Philosophies they belong to or are close to
Who they connect to
Influenced by
- Nagarjuna · Candrakirti wrote the main commentary defending Nagarjuna's method.
Other Buddhist thinkers
- Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) · 480 to 400 BCE
- Nagarjuna · 150 to 250
- Asanga · 300 to 370
- Vasubandhu · 350 to 430
- Dignaga · 480 to 540
- Dharmakirti · 600 to 660
- Wonhyo · 617 to 686
Sources we used
- Madhyamaka · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 9 October 2026
- Candrakirti · Wikipedia, read on 9 October 2026