Most Famous Buddhism Philosophers

Philosophers in this tradition

• Yamamoto Tsunetomo 1659 – 1719 · Japanese

  Yamamoto Tsunetomo was a Japanese samurai and philosopher of the early Edo period, a retainer of the Saga domain who, on the death of his lord in 1700, was forbidden by Tokugawa...

• Dogen 1200 – 1253 · Japanese

  Eihei Dogen was a 13th-century Japanese Zen Buddhist priest and philosopher, the founder of the Soto school of Zen in Japan. After studying in China and returning to Japan in 12...

• Shantideva c. 685 AD – c. 763 AD · Indian

  Shantideva was an Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher of the Madhyamaka school. According to tradition, he was a prince who renounced the throne to enter the great monastic uni...

• Wonhyo 617 – 686 · Korean

  Wonhyo was a Korean Buddhist philosopher, monk, and one of the most important figures in the history of East Asian Buddhism. Famed in legend for an awakening attained when, in t...

• Linji Yixuan c. 810 – 866 · Chinese

  Linji Yixuan was a Chinese Chan Buddhist master of the late Tang dynasty and the founder of the Linji school, the dominant Chan and later Zen lineage in China, Korea, and Japan....

• Buddha c. 563 BC – c. 483 BC · Indian

  Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha or Awakened One, was the founder of Buddhism, traditionally said to have lived in northern India in the fifth century BC. Born into the r...

• D. T. Suzuki 1870 – 1966 · Japanese

  Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki was a Japanese author, scholar, and translator who did more than any other figure to introduce Mahayana Buddhism, especially Zen, to the English-speaking ...

• Nagarjuna c. 150 – c. 250 · Indian

  Nagarjuna was a 2nd or 3rd-century AD Indian Mahayana Buddhist philosopher and the founder of the Madhyamaka or Middle Way school, regarded as one of the most important philosop...

• Atisha c. 980 – 1054 · Bengali-Tibetan

  Atisha Dipankara Shrijnana was a Bengali Buddhist philosopher and monk, abbot of the great Indian monastic university of Vikramashila, who, late in life, accepted an invitation ...

• Kukai 774 – 835 · Japanese

  Kukai, posthumously known as Kobo Daishi, was a Japanese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, poet, and the founder of the esoteric Shingon school. After studies in China under the Tant...

• Naropa 1016 – 1100 · Indian

  Naropa was an eleventh-century Indian Buddhist tantric master, abbot of the great monastic university of Nalanda before he renounced his post in search of his teacher Tilopa, an...

• Eisai 1141 – 1215 · Japanese

  Myoan Eisai was a Japanese Buddhist monk who is credited with introducing the Rinzai school of Zen and the cultivation of green tea to Japan. After two study journeys to Song Ch...

• Jinul 1158 – 1210 · Korean

  Jinul, called Bojo Guksa, was the most influential Korean Buddhist monk of the medieval period and the principal architect of the Jogye Order, which remains the central traditio...

• Nishitani Keiji 1900 – 1990 · Japanese

  Nishitani Keiji was a Japanese philosopher and one of the principal figures of the second generation of the Kyoto School. A student of Nishida Kitaro at Kyoto and of Heidegger a...

• Honen 1133 – 1212 · Japanese

  Honen was a Japanese Buddhist monk and the founder of the Pure Land school of Japanese Buddhism. After decades of intensive study and practice on Mount Hiei, he came to the conv...

• Milarepa 1052 – 1135 · Tibetan

  Milarepa was a Tibetan Buddhist yogi, poet, and one of the most beloved figures in the history of Tibetan religion, the principal disciple of Marpa the Translator and the second...

• Saraha c. 750 – c. 820 · Indian

  Saraha was an early-medieval Indian Buddhist tantric master and poet, traditionally regarded as the founder of the Mahamudra tradition of song and the first of the eighty-four M...

• Aryadeva c. 175 – c. 275 · Indian

  Aryadeva was an Indian Buddhist Madhyamaka philosopher and the principal pupil of Nagarjuna, traditionally identified as a south Indian or Sinhalese monk who succeeded his teach...

• Ikkyu Sojun 1394 – 1481 · Japanese

  Ikkyu Sojun was a Japanese Zen master, poet, and calligrapher of the Muromachi period, abbot of the Daitoku-ji monastery in Kyoto, and the most idiosyncratic figure of medieval ...

• Thich Nhat Hanh 1926 – 2022 · Vietnamese

  Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, peace activist, and one of the most influential teachers of contemporary engaged Buddhism. His leadership of the Buddhist Pea...

• Marpa Lotsawa 1012 – 1097 · Tibetan

  Marpa Lotsawa, called Chokyi Lodro, was an eleventh-century Tibetan Buddhist translator and tantric master, the principal pupil of the Indian Mahasiddha Naropa, and the founder ...

• Buddhaghosa c. 400 – c. 470 · Indian

  Buddhaghosa was a fifth-century Indian Theravada Buddhist philosopher who, having begun his life as a brahmin scholar of Vedic literature and converted to Buddhism, traveled to ...

• Padmasambhava c. 720 – c. 800 · Indian-Tibetan

  Padmasambhava, the Lotus-Born, was an eighth-century Buddhist tantric master from the kingdom of Uddiyana in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, who, according to Tibetan ...

• Asanga c. 310 AD – c. 390 AD · Indian

  Asanga was an Indian Buddhist philosopher and the co-founder, with his half-brother Vasubandhu, of the Yogacara or Consciousness-Only school of Mahayana philosophy. According to...

• Dignaga c. 480 AD – c. 540 AD · Indian

  Dignaga was an Indian Buddhist logician and epistemologist and the founder of the Buddhist tradition of logic and philosophy of knowledge. His Pramana-samuccaya, the Compendium ...

• Hakuin Ekaku 1686 – 1769 · Japanese

  Hakuin Ekaku was a Japanese Rinzai Zen master, painter, and reformer of the Zen tradition. After a long and intense practice marked by repeated breakthroughs in kensho, he settl...

• Nichiren 1222 – 1282 · Japanese

  Nichiren was a Japanese Buddhist priest of the Kamakura period and the founder of the school of Buddhism that bears his name. After decades of study across the major schools of ...

• Shinran 1173 – 1263 · Japanese

  Shinran was a Japanese Buddhist monk and the founder of the Jodo Shinshu, or True Pure Land, school. A student of the earlier Pure Land master Honen, he was exiled with him duri...

• Tilopa 988 – 1069 · Indian

  Tilopa was an eleventh-century Bengali Buddhist tantric master, traditionally regarded as the founder of the Indian lineage of the Mahamudra teachings that, through his pupil Na...

• Tsongkhapa 1357 – 1419 · Tibetan

  Tsongkhapa Lobsang Drakpa was a Tibetan Buddhist philosopher, monk, and reformer, the founder of the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism, which would become the school of the Dalai...

• Zhiyi 538 – 597 · Chinese

  Zhiyi was a Chinese Buddhist philosopher, monk, and the principal founder of the Tiantai school of Mahayana Buddhism, whose lectures at Mount Tiantai in southeastern China set o...

• Abe Masao 1915 – 2006 · Japanese

  Abe Masao was a Japanese Buddhist philosopher of the Kyoto School and the principal exponent of Zen thought in interreligious dialogue with Christianity and Judaism in the late ...

• Asvaghosa c. 80 – c. 150 · Indian

  Asvaghosa was an Indian Buddhist philosopher, poet, and dramatist of the first and second century AD, traditionally counted as one of the most important Sanskrit poets and as a ...

• Bankei Yotaku 1622 – 1693 · Japanese

  Bankei Yotaku was a Japanese Rinzai Zen master of the Edo period, abbot of the Ryomon-ji and the Korin-ji, and one of the most original Zen teachers of seventeenth-century Japan...

• Bhaviveka c. 500 – c. 578 · Indian

  Bhaviveka, also known as Bhavaviveka, was an Indian Buddhist Madhyamaka philosopher of the sixth century, traditionally counted, with Buddhapalita and Candrakirti, among the fou...

• Buddhapalita c. 470 – c. 540 · Indian

  Buddhapalita was an Indian Buddhist Madhyamaka philosopher of the late fifth and early sixth century, traditionally counted, with Bhaviveka and Candrakirti, as one of the three ...

• Candrakirti c. 600 – c. 650 · Indian

  Candrakirti was an Indian Buddhist philosopher of the seventh century and the most important Madhyamaka commentator of the consequentialist, or Prasangika, school. His Madhyamak...

• Dharmakirti c. 600 AD – c. 660 AD · Indian

  Dharmakirti was an Indian Buddhist philosopher who completed and transformed the logical and epistemological tradition founded by Dignaga. His seven treatises, including the Pra...

• Longchenpa 1308 – 1364 · Tibetan

  Longchen Rabjam, known as Longchenpa, was a fourteenth-century Tibetan Buddhist philosopher and the most systematic exponent of the Dzogchen, or Great Perfection, teachings of t...

• Nishida Kitaro 1870 – 1945 · Japanese

  Nishida Kitaro was a Japanese philosopher and the founder of the Kyoto School. Bringing the resources of European philosophy, particularly German idealism and phenomenology, int...

• Rinchen Zangpo 958 – 1055 · Tibetan

  Rinchen Zangpo was a Tibetan translator and Buddhist scholar of the late tenth and eleventh centuries, the most important figure of the so-called Later Diffusion of Buddhism in ...

• Saicho 767 – 822 · Japanese

  Saicho, posthumously known as Dengyo Daishi, was a Japanese Buddhist monk and the founder of the Tendai school in Japan. After studies in China at the great Tiantai monastery on...

• Sakya Pandita 1182 – 1251 · Tibetan

  Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen was a Tibetan Buddhist scholar, monk, and statesman, the fourth of the Five Sakya Forefathers and the leader of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism...

• Tanabe Hajime 1885 – 1962 · Japanese

  Tanabe Hajime was a Japanese philosopher of the Kyoto School and the principal successor of Nishida Kitaro at Kyoto Imperial University. After early studies in philosophy of mat...

• Tran Nhan Tong 1258 – 1308 · Vietnamese

  Tran Nhan Tong was a Vietnamese Buddhist philosopher, poet, and emperor of the Tran dynasty, who, after leading the Dai Viet to victory over two Mongol invasions, abdicated the ...

• Vasubandhu c. 316 AD – c. 396 AD · Indian

  Vasubandhu was an Indian Buddhist philosopher, one of the most important systematic thinkers in the Mahayana tradition. He first composed the Abhidharmakosha, an encyclopedic tr...

• Vasumitra c. 100 – c. 170 · Indian

  Vasumitra was an Indian Buddhist abhidharma philosopher of the early second century AD, traditionally counted as one of the principal compilers of the Mahavibhasha, the great co...

• Watsuji Tetsuro 1889 – 1960 · Japanese

  Watsuji Tetsuro was a Japanese moral philosopher and cultural historian and one of the principal figures of twentieth-century Japanese thought. Drawing on Heidegger, Kant, and t...

• Uisang 625 – 702 · Korean

  Uisang was a Korean Buddhist philosopher and the founder of Korean Hwaeom (Avatamsaka) Buddhism. After studying under the Hwaeom master Zhiyan in Tang China alongside the great ...