Dharmapala of Nalanda

Dharmapāla (traditional Chinese: 護法, pinyin: Hùfǎ) (530–561 CE or 530–590 CE), was an Indian Buddhist scholar and one of the main teachers of the Yogācāra school of philosophy in India. Amongst his contemporaries were Sthiramati and Bhāviveka, the latter of whom he interacted with. Dharmapāla's philosophical thought is mainly preserved in Chinese translations and he is highly regarded within the school of East Asian Yogācāra.

Life In his Records of the Western Regions, Xuanzang writes that Dharmapāla was born in Kanchipuram, where he was the son of a high official and was betrothed to a daughter of the king. However just before his wedding was supposed to take place, he escaped and entered the order, studied all views, Hinayana as well as Mahayana, and attained to reverence and distinction. Some variations of this story assert that he escaped by praying to a deity who transported him to a monastery which was located far from his homeland. There are differing accounts as to how long Dharmapāla stayed at Nalanda. Kuiji, a disciple of Xuanzang, states in his writings that Dharmapāla left Nalanda at the age of twenty-nine to write treatises and practice meditation before dying at the age of thirty-two. However Taranatha states that Dharmapāla stayed at Nalanda for thirty years where he continued to study under Dignāga.

Through the teachings of his disciple Śīlabhadra to Xuanzang, Dharmapāla's tenets spread widely in China.

According to Chinese sources, Dharmapāla wrote four works. One of these is a lost work on grammar. The other three, which only survive in Chinese, are the following commentaries:

A Commentary on the Four-Hundred Verses (Dasheng guang bailun shilun 大乘廣百論 釋論; T1571, in 10 fascicles): a commentary on the Four-Hundred Verses (Catuḥśataka) of Āryadeva (c. third century). Jewel-Arising Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only (Cheng weishi baosheng lun 成唯識寶生論; T1591, in 5 fascicles), a commentary on Vasubandhu's Twenty Verses (Viṃśikā). A Commentary on the Investigation of Cognitive Objects (Guan suoyuan lun shi 觀所緣 論釋; T1625, in 1 fascicle;), commentary on Dignāga's Investigation of Cognitive Objects (Ālambanaparīkṣā).