Place
Nalanda
The greatest monastic university of the ancient world, in the kingdom of Magadha: thousands of monks, a library called the Ocean of Gems said to have burned for months when the university was destroyed around 1200. Dignaga and Dharmakirti taught its logic, Xuanzang traveled from China to study here, and its curriculum still structures Buddhist education in Tibet.
Nalanda was a walled complex of monasteries, lecture halls, and dormitories in Magadha, endowed by kings and running for seven centuries. Admission was by examination at the gate, and the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang described a place where debate went on all day and much of the night. Dignaga and Dharmakirti built Buddhist logic here. When it was sacked around 1200 the library was said to have burned for months, which is one way a tradition of argument comes to an end.
Thinkers Connected to Nalanda
Mahavira
Non-violence taken to its furthest point. He walked naked, swept the ground before each step, and strained his water to avoid harming insects.
Nagarjuna
Everything is empty. Not empty of existence, but empty of independent, permanent essence. He turned Buddhist logic into a razor.
Dignaga
The founder of Buddhist logic, who rebuilt the theory of knowledge around two sources alone: bare perception and inference.
Dharmakirti
He asked what it means to truly know something, and gave a stricter answer than anyone before him.