MaitripadaMaitrīpāda ( 1007–1085, also known as Maitreyanātha, Advayavajra, and, to Tibetans, Maitrīpa), was a prominent Indian Buddhist Mahasiddha associated with the Mahāmudrā transmission of tantric Buddhism. His teachers were Shavaripa and Naropa. His students include Atisha, Marpa, Vajrapani, Karopa, Natekara (also known as Sahajavajra), Devākaracandra (also known as Śūnyatāsamādhi), and Rāmapāla. His hermitage was in the Mithila region (also known as Tirhut), somewhere in northern Bihar and neighboring parts of southern Nepal.
HevajraHevajra (Tibetan: ཀྱེའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ kye'i rdo rje / kye rdo rje; Chinese: 喜金剛 Xǐ jīngāng / 呼金剛 Hū jīngāng;) is one of the main yidams (enlightened beings) in Tantric, or Vajrayana Buddhism. Hevajra's consort is Nairātmyā (Tibetan: bdag med ma). The Hevajra Tantra, a yoginītantra of the anuttarayogatantra class, is believed to have originated between the late 8th (Snellgrove), and the late 9th or early 10th centuries (Davidson), in Eastern India, possibly Kamarupa.
JñanasrimitraJñānaśrīmitra (fl. 975-1025 C.E.) was an Indian Buddhist philosopher of the epistemological (pramana) tradition of Buddhist philosophy, which goes back to Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. Jñānaśrīmitra was also known as a Yogācāra Buddhist who defended a form of Buddhist idealism termed Sākāravada which holds that cognitive content or aspects of consciousness ("ākāras") are real and not illusory. Jñānaśrīmitra was also a skilled poet, a dvāra-paṇḍita (gate-scholar) of Vikramaśīla university, and the teacher of Ratnakīrti.
RatnakīrtiRatnakīrti (11th century CE) was an Indian Buddhist philosopher of the Yogācāra and epistemological (pramāṇavāda) schools who wrote on logic, philosophy of mind and epistemology. Ratnakīrti studied at the Vikramaśīla monastery in modern-day Bihar. He was a pupil of Jñānaśrīmitra, and Ratnakīrti refers to Jñānaśrīmitra in his work as his guru with phrases such as yad āhur guravaḥ. Ratnakīrti's work has been termed as "more concise and logical though not so poetical" compared to that of his teacher, although he does build on much of Jñānaśrīmitra's work.
NaropaNāropā (Prakrit; Nāropāda, Naḍapāda or Abhayakirti) or Abhayakirti was an Indian Buddhist Mahasiddha. He was the disciple of Tilopa and brother, or some sources say partner and pupil, of Niguma. As an Indian Mahasiddha, Naropa's instructions inform Vajrayana, particularly his six yogas of Naropa relevant to the completion stage of anuttarayogatantra. He was also one of the gatekeepers of Vikramashila monastery which is located in Bihar.
Rangtong and shentongShentong (Wylie: gzhang stong, "emptiness of other") is term for a type of Buddhist view on emptiness (śūnyatā), Madhyamaka, and the two truths in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. It is often contrasted with the term rangtong ("self-emptiness"). The term refers to a range of views held by different Tibetan Buddhist figures. The classic shentong view was developed and defended by the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism, especially by the great scholar Dölpopa Shérap Gyeltsen (1292–1361).
RatnagotravibhāgaThe Ratnagotravibhāga (Sanskrit, abbreviated as RGV, meaning: Analysis of the Jeweled Lineage, Investigating the Jewel Disposition) and its vyākhyā commentary (abbreviated RGVV to refer to the RGV verses along with the embedded commentary), is an influential Mahāyāna Buddhist treatise on buddha-nature (a.k.a. tathāgatagarbha). The text is also known as the Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra (The Ultimate Teaching of the Mahāyāna). The RGVV was originally composed in Sanskrit, likely between the middle of the third century and no later than 433 CE.
Buddhist logico-epistemologyBuddhist logico-epistemology is a term used in Western scholarship to describe Buddhist systems of (doctrine of proof) and hetu-vidya (science of causes). is an epistemological study of the nature of knowledge; Hetu-vidya is a system of logic. These models developed in India during the 5th through 7th centuries. The early Buddhist texts show that the historical Buddha was familiar with certain rules of reasoning used for debating purposes and made use of these against his opponents.
Buddhist philosophyBuddhist philosophy is the ancient Indian philosophical system that developed within the religio-philosophical tradition of Buddhism. It comprises all the philosophical investigations and systems of rational inquiry that developed among various schools of Buddhism in ancient India following the parinirvāṇa of Gautama Buddha (c. 5th century BCE), as well as the further developments which followed the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia. Buddhism combines both philosophical reasoning and the practice of meditation.
MahasiddhaMahasiddha (Sanskrit: mahāsiddha "great adept; ) is a term for someone who embodies and cultivates the "siddhi of perfection". A siddha is an individual who, through the practice of sādhanā, attains the realization of siddhis, psychic and spiritual abilities and powers. Mahasiddhas were practitioners of yoga and tantra, or tantrikas. Their historical influence throughout the Indian subcontinent and the Himalayas was vast and they reached mythic proportions as codified in their songs of realization and hagiographies, or namtars, many of which have been preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon.
