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Śāntarakṣita

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Position summary

Śāntarakṣita is the principal figure of the Yogācāra-Madhyamaka (rnal ‘byor spyod pa’i dbu ma pa) school, which weds Dharmakīrti’s epistemological tradition to Madhyamaka emptiness. His signature contribution is a two-step method. Conventional reality is first analysed through Cittamātra, where external objects turn out to be projections of mind; mind itself is then shown to lack intrinsic nature (རང་བཞིན་) through Madhyamaka reasoning. The central logical tool is the “neither one nor many” (gcig du bral) argument: anything that is neither truly singular nor truly plural cannot possess intrinsic being.

He also draws a distinction between two ultimates. The approximate ultimate (rnam grangs pa’i don dam) is emptiness as conceptually cognised through reasoning; the actual ultimate (rnam grangs ma yin pa’i don dam) is emptiness beyond all conceptual elaboration. This distinction runs structurally parallel to Gorampa’s later pairing of a quasi-ultimate and a real ultimate.

Hermeneutical approach

Śāntarakṣita works fully within the Mahāyāna hermeneutical framework. He presupposes the Two Truths, uses Yogācāra categories for the conventional, and turns to Madhyamaka reasoning for the ultimate. His method is svātantra (independent syllogistic reasoning), which makes him a Svātantrika — though Mipham later argues that this does not imply a lesser view than the Prāsaṅgika. Alone among the major Indian Mādhyamikas, he draws the pramāṇa (valid cognition) tradition of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti into his account.

Key claims

  • All entities lack intrinsic being because they are neither truly one nor truly many (root verse 1) — from shantarakshita-madhyamakalankara
  • External objects do not exist; they are mind’s projections (Cittamātra step) — root verse 92
  • Mind itself is devoid of self (Madhyamaka step) — root verse 92
  • The approximate ultimate is “attuned” to the actual ultimate but is not identical with it — root verses 70–71
  • Non-Buddhist and Buddhist tenet systems form a hierarchy of progressively subtler views, each critiqued by the next

The five propositions of Śāntarakṣita’s tradition (per Mipham’s General Introduction)

Mipham frames the whole text around five positions he holds superior to other Madhyamaka (MA commentary, General Introduction, raw p. 102):

  1. Only the causally-efficient thing (don byed nus pa’i dngos po) is an authentic object of valid cognition (gzhal bya) — the Dharmakīrtian conventional epistemology.
  2. A distinctive account of reflexive awareness (རང་རིག་, svasaṃvedana) — self-knowing, self-illuminating, existing only conventionally and “the sine qua non of valid cognition on the conventional level.”
  3. Phenomena are posited as mind only (sems tsam) on the conventional level — the Yogācāra register accepted ontologically as conventional truth, “no better account of the conventional.”
  4. A clear distinction between the approximate ultimate (rnam grangs pa’i don dam, the reasoned non-implicative negation of true existence) and the actual ultimate (rnam grangs ma yin pa’i don dam, beyond all thought and word).
  5. When establishing the approximate ultimate, the two kinds of valid reasoning (conventional pramāṇa + ultimate analysis) are held without contradiction.

The argument as method, not standalone system

  • The “neither one nor many” reasoning can be cast as either a prasaṅga or an autonomous inference (MA commentary, “A Prāsaṅgika or a Svātantrika argument?”, raw pp. 126–128), with Kamalaśīla’s Madhyamakāloka cited to the effect that both methods “refute… equally.” The analysis stays constant; only its form is presentational. The point bears on madhyamaka-is-method-not-standalone-system and sp-hierarchy-is-tibetan-construction.
  • Yogācāra accepted ontologically as conventional truth, then emptied ultimately. Śāntarakṣita uses Cittamātra to dismantle external objects (the conventional account), then turns the analysis on consciousness itself — its true existence is Cittamātra’s “weak point” (MA vv. 44–60) — and arrives at an actual ultimate that is beyond elaboration and not truly existent. Here is a Mādhyamika using the same mind-only material against the grain of zhentong’s truly-existent pariniṣpanna (see zhentong-is-refined-cittamatra-not-madhyamaka).
  • The two-stage path into suchness. The approximate ultimate “as a first step… destroys clinging to reality” (existence); the actual ultimate then “halts clinging to non-reality” (raw p. 105). Madhyamaka is the method that takes the final step into the equipoise beyond the four extremes.
  • Explicit anti-nihilism. “The nihilist view is to deny the principle of karmic causality while assuming the true existence of things” (raw p. 106) — so the non-implicative negation of true existence is not nihilism. Root v. 82 says as much: “the views of permanence and nothingness / are far from the teaching of this text.” The actual ultimate is also set apart from Hashang’s mere mental blankness.

Conventional truth

Śāntarakṣita holds the Yogācāra-Svātantrika position on conventional-truth. For him the conventional is mind-only mere appearance (snang ba tsam): causally efficient and warranted by a well-developed Dharmakīrtian conventional pramāṇa. This is a positively grounded conventional ontology drawn from the Yogācāra register, and it contrasts sharply with two neighbours — Bhāviveka’s Sautrāntika external realism on one side, Candrakīrti’s ungrounded “in accordance with the world” conventional on the other. Tellingly, the conventional layer can be swapped between the two Svātantrikas (Sautrāntika for Yogācāra, or the reverse) without altering the ultimate analysis at all. That swappability shows the conventional to be a received input rather than a Madhyamaka commitment.

  • Mipham — 19th-century Nyingma commentator on the Madhyamakālaṅkāra; reinterprets Śāntarakṣita’s Svātantrika as converging with Prāsaṅgika
  • Kamalaśīla (c. 740–795 CE) — Śāntarakṣita’s student; author of the Madhyamakāloka (commentary on Madhyamakālaṅkāra) and Bhāvanākrama
  • Dharmakīrti (c. 600–660 CE) — the epistemological tradition Śāntarakṣita brings together with Madhyamaka
  • Tsongkhapa — classifies Śāntarakṣita as Svātantrika-Yogācāra; presents his view as a stepping stone to the subtler Prāsaṅgika
  • Gorampa — his approximate/actual ultimate distinction parallels Gorampa’s quasi-ultimate / real ultimate
  • Atiśa — explicitly contrasted his “pure” Candrakīrti-lineage Madhyamaka with the Yogācāra-Madhyamaka of Śāntarakṣita/Kamalaśīla that Tibetans had inherited. Key differences: Atiśa rejected pramāṇa for realising emptiness (Śāntarakṣita/Kamalaśīla accepted inference); Atiśa denied any real conventional basis (Śāntarakṣita granted conventionally real mental elements); Atiśa rejected common establishment (ubhayasiddhatva) in debate (apple-jewels-middle-way-2018)

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