Atiśa (Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna)
982 CE–1054 CE · Bikrampur (Munshiganj)
c. 982–1054 CE (the long-standing traditional dating; some scholars give c. 980–1052)
Atiśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna (982–1054 CE) was an Indian master whose mission to Tibet became a turning point in the 'later diffusion' of Buddhism there. Born into a royal family in the Bengal region of what is now Bangladesh, he became a leading scholar at the monastic university of Vikramaśīla (and, by tradition, studied for years in Sumatra). Invited to Tibet, he arrived in 1042 and wrote the 'Lamp for the Path to Awakening' (Bodhipathapradīpa), the seed of the influential 'stages of the path' (lamrim) literature; his teaching inspired the Kadam school founded by his disciple Dromtön and, much later, Tsongkhapa's Gelug. His career is well documented.
Did you know?
One teacher, two epic voyages — to Sumatra, then over the Himalayas
Before he ever went to Tibet, the Indian master Atiśa is traditionally said to have sailed to Suvarṇadvīpa (Sumatra) and studied there for about twelve years under the teacher known as Serlingpa. Decades later, in 1042 CE, he crossed the Himalayas into Tibet at roughly the age of sixty; he never returned to India, dying at Nyethang near Lhasa in 1054.
How we know
Atiśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna, b. c. 982 CE (Bengal); c. 12 years in Suvarṇadvīpa/Sumatra under Dharmakīrtiśrī (Serlingpa), returned to India c. 1025; arrived Tibet (Ngari) 1042 CE at age ~60; d. 1054 CE at Nyethang near Lhasa (Wikipedia; Treasury of Lives).
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Bikrampur (Munshiganj)
What they did here
Born into a royal family in the Bengal region (in present-day Bangladesh) and ordained after lay life.
About Bikrampur (Munshiganj)
Bikrampur, now part of Munshiganj District in Bangladesh, is a historic region on the Padma River in eastern Bengal. It became an administrative centre under the Chandra kings in the tenth century and later a regional capital of the Sena dynasty, whose king Lakshman Sen withdrew there after his defeat in 1205. In the Buddhist world of Pāla-era Bengal it is remembered as the birthplace, around 982 CE, of Atiśa (Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna), most probably at the village of Vajrayogini; he became a senior scholar at Vikramaśīla before leaving for Tibet in 1040. Under the Mughals it was a pargana, and in modern times many Bengali families traced their roots to the area, including that of the physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Atiśa (Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna)’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.