Seventeen Philosophers, 2023

This thangka is a depiction of the Seventeen Indian masters of the Nalanda Monastic University, the most important Buddhist learning center in India’s past. The Buddah sits at the center and is surrounded by images of these masters. Nalanda Monastic University was established during the Gupta Dynasty in the late 5th to early 6th century C.E. under the patronage of the Gupta king Shakraditra, the institution survived for six hundred years through the... Pala Dynasty. Nalanda’s renown as a center for higher learning spread far. It attracted students from as far away as Greece, Persia, China, and Tibet. Although Buddhism or Buddhist Philosophy was naturally the central focus of study, other subjects, including astronomy, medicine (Ayurveda), grammar, metaphysics, logic, philosophy of language, classical Hindu philosophy, non-Indian philosophy, and so forth, were all regularly studied.  The seventeen Indian masters represented in the thangka are the author of all the books in the Tibetan Collection. These seventeen masters names are: Nagarjuna (c. 2nd century C.E.), the revealer of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras and the systematizer and founder of the Middle Way (Madhyamaka) school of Buddhist philosophy; Aryadeva (c. 3rd century C.E.); Asanga (300-390 C.E.); Vasubandhu (c. 4th-century C.E.); Dignaga (6th-century C.E.); Dharmakirti (600-660 C.E.); Gunaprabha (c. 9th century C.E.); Shakyaprabha; Buddhapalita (470-550 C.E.); Bhavaviveka (500-578 C.E.); Chandrakirti (600-650 C.E.); Shantarakshita (725-788 C.E.); Kamalashila (c. 8th-century C.E.); Haribhadra (700-770 C.E.); Vimuktisena (c. 6th century C.E.); Shantideva (c. 8th-century C.E.); and Atisha (980-1054 C.E.)