Candrakirti c. 600 – c. 650

Candrakirti was an Indian Buddhist philosopher of the seventh century and the most important Madhyamaka commentator of the consequentialist, or Prasangika, school. His Madhyamakavatara, a comprehensive verse exposition of the bodhisattva path through the perfection of wisdom, became the most widely studied summary of Madhyamaka philosophy in Tibet, while his Prasannapada, the only complete surviving Sanskrit commentary on Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika, set the terms of Tibetan Madhyamaka exegesis for the next millennium. He defended the view that the Madhyamika has no thesis of his own, and so refutes opponents not by counter-argument but by drawing out the absurd consequences of the views they themselves hold.