Śaṅkaranandana

Śaṅkaranandana (fl. c. 9th or 10th century), (Tibetan: ''Bde byed dga’ ba)'' was a Mahayana Buddhist philosopher, and a brahmin lay devotee (upāsaka) active in Kashmir in the epistemological (''pramana'') tradition of Dignaga and Dharmakīrti. He was quite influential in both Kashmir and Tibet, and became known as "the second Dharmakīrti," and “the Great Brahmin.”

Śaṅkaranandana is cited by both Kashmiri Shaiva authors like Abhinavagupta and by Tibetan Buddhist authors and translators. Vincent Eltschinger states that he was "the main interlocutor of the Saiva Pratyabhijña school and as one of the most influential thinkers among the early generations of Tibetan philosophers." His influence on Kashmir Shaiva thinkers was such that Abhinavagupta even calls Śaṅkaranandana his "guru" in ''Mālinīvijayavārttika'' and speaks of Śaṅkaranandana's enlightenment in another text (the interpretation of this is disputed however). This led some modern scholars to speculate whether Śaṅkaranandana was a Shaiva at some point who later converted to Buddhism. This thesis has not been proven however. Tāranātha’s ''History'' does state that he was a non-Buddhist brahmin who converted after seeing Manjusri in a dream. Whatever the case, all of Śaṅkaranandana's extant works are of a Buddhist persuasion.

Like other thinkers in his tradition, Śaṅkaranandana defended the idealistic Yogacara theory of "consciousness only" or ''Vijñānavāda'' through the logical refutation of any external objects of cognition. Thus, according to Eltschinger, for Śaṅkaranandana "realistic or pluralistic accounts of reality rely on latent tendencies and are ultimately erroneous". For Śaṅkaranandana, the ultimate view is the non-dual view (advaya-darsana) in which a Buddha perceives only non-dual consciousness free of subject-object distinctions and of all transformations of thought produced by latent tendencies. Provided by Wikipedia
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