☾Chandrakirti

c.600–650 · Indo-Tibetan Buddhism · Little-known

Chandrakirti was a seventh-century Indian Buddhist who systematized the Prasangika branch of the Middle Way school founded by Nagarjuna. The right method, he held, is to take an opponent's position and follow it into absurdity, advancing no claim of your own. A philosopher on this view has no thesis to defend and nothing left to prove, a quiet the school prizes. Tibet made his reading of Nagarjuna the standard one.

Signature

The position Chandrakirti is most identified with in the Profiler:

The Divine

strongly leans Indescribable

Paradox

Apophatic Pointer

Positions on the 2 axes the sources answer

The Divine

strongly leans Indescribable (96 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)

Universals

leans Nominalism (83 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)

18 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Chandrakirti refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.

Foundational questions

Theology

Atheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods?

Highest Good

Other
What is the highest good?

Good and Evil

Karmic Balance
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil?

Perception

Non-Dual Awareness / Predictive Perception
What do we directly perceive?

Knowledge

Pragmatic Test
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge?

Ethics Basis

Intention
What is the ultimate basis of ethics?

Agency

Non-Self
What is the nature of human agency and freedom?

Beginning of Things

Cyclical Recurrence
What is the origin of reality?

Authority

Sacred Tradition
What is the legitimate source of authority?

Paradox

Apophatic Pointer
What is the status of paradox?

Death

Karmic Cycle
What happens at death?

Human Nature

No-Self
What is human nature?

Primary Bond

All Beings
What is your primary bond and loyalty?

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