Atisha
Atisha Dipamkara Shrijñana (Skt. Atiśa Dīpaṃkara Śrijñāna; Tib. ཨ་ཏི་ཤ་མར་མེ་མཛད་དཔལ་ཡེ་ཤེས་, Atisha Marmézé Pal Yeshé; Wyl. a ti sha mar me mdzad dpal ye shes) or Jowo Jé Palden Atisha (ཇོ་བོ་རྗེ་དཔལ་ལྡན་ཨ་ཏི་ཤ་, jo bo rje dpal ldan a ti sha) (982-1054) was a great Indian master and scholar, and author of many texts including the Lamp for the Path of Awakening. One of the main teachers at the famous university of Vikramashila, he was also a strict follower of the monastic rule and was widely acclaimed for the purity of his teaching. He spent the last ten years of his life in Tibet, teaching and translating texts, and was instrumental in reinvigorating Buddhism there after a period of persecution. His disciples founded the Kadampa school.
Writings
Main Disciples
Chief among Atisha's Tibetan disciples were the three known as "Khu, Ngok, and Drom," who were renowned as emanations of the three main bodhisattvas—Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, and Vajrapani: Khutön Tsöndru Yungdrung, Ngok Lekpé Sherab and Dromtön Gyalwé Jungné.
Further Reading
- Chattopadhyaya, Alaka. Atisha and Tibet. Calcutta: Indian Studies Past and Present, 1967.
- Decleer, Hubert. 'Atisha's Journey to Sumatra', in Buddhism in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez Jr., Princeton University Press, 1995
- Decleer, Hubert. 'Atisha's Journey to Tibet', in Religions of Tibet in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez Jr., Princeton University Press, 1997
- Eimer, Helmut. 'The Development of the Biographical Tradition concerning Atisa (Dipamkarasrijnana)' in The Journal of the Tibet Society, Vol. 2 (1982), pp. 41-51
- Seyfort Ruegg, David. The Literature of the Madhyamaka School of Philosophy in India, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1981, pp. 110-113
- Sherburne, Richard, trans. The Complete Works of Atiśa Śrī Dīpaṃkara Jñāna. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2000.
Internal Links
- Ka khol ma, The Pillar Testament.
- Quotations from Atīśa's works.
