Aryadeva

3rd century CE) (IAST: Āryadeva; Tibetan: འཕགས་པ་ལྷ་, Wylie: 'phags pa lha, Chinese: 提婆 菩薩 Tipo pusa meaning Deva Bodhisattva), was a Mahayana Buddhist monk, a disciple of Nagarjuna and a Madhyamaka philosopher.

According to Karen Lang:The earliest information we have about the life of Aryadeva occurs in the hagiography translated into Chinese by the Central Asian monk Kumarajiva (344–413 c.e.).

Nagarjuna helped Aryadeva prepare for debate against Brahmanical teachers who had defeated Buddhist monks in the northeastern city of Vaisali for the previous twelve years.

), and "may possibly be confirmed by references in the Ceylonese chronicles Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa to a “Deva” who lived in the second half of the third century at the time when the Indian Vetullavāda sect of Great Vehicle Buddhism was temporarily implanted in Śrī Laṅka.

David Seyfort Ruegg outlines the content as follows:(i—iv) Elimination of the erroneous positing of things as permanent (nitya), pleasant (sukha), pure (asubha or suci), and self (atman) (according to Candrakirti these four chapters which dispel the four viparyasas explain the nature of mundane things so that they may be abandoned and buddhahood may be achieved), (v) The Bodhisattva's practice (which makes it practically possible to achieve Buddhahood).

Finally chapter xvi, entitled 'An exposition of the cultivation of ascertainment for master and disciple', is devoted to a consideration of logical and epistemological problems in the doctrine of sunyata.

In particular, it is pointed out (in conformity with Vigrahavyavartani 29—30) that he who does not maintain a thesis (paksa) based on the positions of existence (sat), non-existence (asat), and both cannot be attacked in logic by an opponent (xvi.

Contemporary research suggests that these works are datable to a significantly later period in Buddhist history (late ninth or early tenth century) and they are seen as being part of a Vajrayana Madhyamaka tradition which included a later tantric author also named Āryadeva.

[13] Tillemans also notes that the Compendium on the Essence of Knowledge (jñānasārasamuccaya) "gives the fourfold presentation of Buddhist doctrine typical of the doxographical (siddhānta) literature, a genre which considerably post-dates the third century".

[6] Traditional historians (for example, the 17th century Tibetan Tāranātha), aware of the chronological difficulties involved, account for the anachronism via a variety of theories, such as the propagation of later writings via mystical revelation.