Patsab Nyima Drakpa (Tib. པ་ཚབ་ཉི་མ་གྲགས་པ་, Wyl. ''pa tshab nyi ma grags pa'') (1055-1145?) was a

Tibetan Buddhist Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...

scholar and translator of the Sarma (New Translation) era. He was a monk at Sangpu monastery and traveled to Kashmir where he translated Buddhist Madhyamika texts. He is best known for being an important translator and exegete of

Madhyamaka Mādhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no ''svabhāva'' doctrine"), refers to a tradition of Buddhi ...

philosophy in

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...

, associating himself with what he called the "Prasangika" school and the views of Chandrakirti. He is thus considered to be the founder of the " Prasangika" school in Tibet and may have invented the Tibetan term ''thal 'gyur ba'' (which modern scholars have back translated to ''prasangika''). Patsab translated

Nagarjuna Nāgārjuna . 150 – c. 250 CE (disputed)was an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker, scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.Garfield, Jay L. (1995), ''The Fundamental Wisdom of ...

's '' Mulamadhyamakakarika'',

Aryadeva Āryadeva (fl. 3rd century CE) (; , Chinese: ''Tipo pusa'' ��婆菩薩 = Deva Bodhisattva, was a Mahayana Buddhist monk, a disciple of Nagarjuna and a Madhyamaka philosopher.Silk, Jonathan A. (ed.) (2019). ''Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhi ...

's ''Four Hundred Verses'', and

Chandrakirti Chandrakirti (; ; , meaning "glory of the moon" in Sanskrit) or "Chandra" was a Buddhist scholar of the madhyamaka school and a noted commentator on the works of Nagarjuna () and those of his main disciple, Aryadeva. He wrote two influential w ...

's ''Madhyamakavatara''. Three commentary works are attributed to him, and they have recently been published in the "Selected Works of the Kadampas, volume II". Patsab's commentary on Nagarjuna's ''Mulamadhyamakakarika'' seems to be the first Tibetan commentary on this work.Vose, Kevin A. Resurrecting Candrakirti: Disputes in the Tibetan Creation of Prasangika, page 7

References

Sources

* Shakya Chokden, ''Three Texts on Madhyamaka'', trans. Komarovski Iaroslav, Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2002. p. 23. * Karen Lang, 'Spa-tshab Nyi-ma-grags and the Introduction of Prâsangika Madhyamaka into Tibet' in Epstein, ''Reflections on Tibetan Culture: Essays in Memory of Turrell V. Wylie'' (1989) pp. 127–141. * Leonard van der Kuijp, 'Notes on the Transmission of Nagarjuna's Ratnavali in Tibet', in ''The Tibet Journal'', Summer 1985, vol. X, No.2,4 {{DEFAULTSORT:Patsab Nyima Drakpa Scholars of Buddhism from Tibet Lamas Madhyamaka Tibetan philosophers