Gorampa

Gorampa Sonam Senge (Wylie: go rams pa bsod nams seng ge, 1429–1489) was an important philosopher in the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism. He was the author of a vast collection of commentaries on sutra and tantra whose work was influential throughout Tibetan Buddhism. Gorampa is particularly known for his writings on madhyamaka philosophy, especially his critique of the madhyamaka views of Tsongkhapa and Dolpopa. Gorampa defended the mainly anti-realist interpretation of madhyamaka held by the Sakya school (which sees conventional truth as a false illusion).

Gorampa was the student of Rongtön (Rongtön Shéja Künrig, Wylie: rong ston shes bya kun rig), Byams chen rab ’byams pa Sangs rgyas ’phel (1411–85), Ngor chen Kun dga’ bzang po (1382–1456), Gung ru Shes rab bzang po (1411–75). He founded the Thuptén Namgyél Monastery in Tanag (Wylie: rta nag thub bstan rnam rgyal gling), which is just north of Shigatse.

Gorampa's works were very influential in Sakya and also outside of the Sakya school. He was a major rival which Gelug scholastics responded to centuries after his death. His work was also a major source for the madhyamaka views of Mipham (1846–1912). His works were suppressed by Gelug state institutions for his polemical treatment of Tsongkhapa's views. In the 20th century, they were re-published by Jamgyal Rinpoche with permission from the 13th Dalai Lama. His work is widely studied today in Sakya, Kagyu and Nyingma scholasticism.

During Gorampa's time, the Sakya school had to contend with the rise of new Tibetan Buddhist traditions which were growing rapidly, mainly the Gelug school of Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) and the Jonang school of Dolpopa (1292–1361). Both of these schools presented unique presentations of the madhymaka philosophy, which differed significantly from the classic Sakya interpretation of madhyamaka. The Sakyas had also lost political hegemony in Tibet at the time. As the tibetologist José Cabezón writes, "the time was therefore ripe for a committed Sa skya pa intellectual to step up and offer a defense of the classical Sa skya tradition as a whole."

One of Gorampa's most important and popular works is Distinguishing the Views (Wylie: lta ba'i shan 'byed), in which he argues for the classic Sakya view of madhyamaka, which he termed “the Middle Way qua freedom from extremes” (mtha’ bral dbu ma). Like all madhyamikas, Gorampa and other Sakya teachers classified themselves as presenting a madhyamaka view which was "Free from Proliferation" (Wylie: spros bral) and he used this name as a moniker for his interpretation of madhyamaka. According to Cabezón, Gorampa's polemics attempt to argue that his interpretation of madhyamaka "is the true middle way between two extremist views prevalent in his day: the eternalistic view of the Jo nang pas, and the nihilistic view of the Dga’ ldan pas." Gorampa considers this view to be the orthodox Sakya school view and traces it back to Ngok Loden Sherab and Patsab Nyima Drak.

According to Gorampa, all phenomena are empty of inherent existence (svabhava) but this is not the only feature of the ultimate truth (i.e. emptiness). The ultimate truth is also the absence of the four extremes (existence, nonexistence, both and neither), without any qualification. Thus, for Gorampa, conventional truths are also an object of negation because "they are not found at all when subjected to ultimate rational analysis". Hence, Gorampa's madhyamaka negates existence itself without qualifications. This is different than the view of Tsongkhapa, where the object of negation is just svabhava.

Cabezón writes that Gorampa's philosophy is "committed to a more literal reading of the Indian sources than either Dol po pa’s or Tsong kha pa’s, which is to say that it tends to take the Indian texts at face value." As such, according to Cabezón, Gorampa holds that "the fourfold negation found in the tetralemma or catuskoti—not x, not non-x, not both, and not neither—is to be taken literally as a repudiation of, for example, existence, nonexistence, both, and neither without the need for qualification. Hence, contra Tsong kha pa, existence itself is an object of negation for him, there being no need to add the qualifier “ultimate” (as in “ultimate existence”) to make this negation palatable."

According to Gorampa, ultimate truth has two aspects: