Starting on May 5 2026, Geshe Namdak and the Jamyang community are embarking on a 7-month study of Āryadeva’s Four Hundred Verses, a quintessential Mahāyāna text presenting a wide range of Madhyamaka-centered teachings. In anticipation of this course, Michael Lobsang Tenpa reflects on the importance of the text and its potential role in our personal practice.
One aspect of the richness of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition is its textual legacy: an incredible collection of texts to peruse, contemplate, and apply in one’s meditation, both translated from Indian sources and written by the great masters of Tibet.
Even though the primary source material for most Buddhist teachings comes from the sutras, or the discourses given by the Buddha, it is fairly rare for them to be at the center of one’s philosophical studies. In contrast to the Pali suttas, which tend to be more linear, sutras that belong to the Sanskrit tradition often cover a lot of territory and present a complex narrative that is not easy to immediately make sense of; think of being introduced to Star Wars or Star Trek in the middle of an episode, with no beginning or end in sight. For a newcomer to Buddhism, or even someone already immersed in the tradition but hoping to develop coherent understanding, the’ teachings of the sutras might be initially somewhat confusing—especially since valuable information on the same topic is usually scattered over hundreds of individual discourses. To support the study and practice of future generations through well-organized explanations, the great masters of India wrote the so-called śāstras: treatises that are meant to “heal and protect the teachings”.
Most of the quintessential śāstras used by the Mahāyāna tradition (in its northern and eastern branches alike) were composed by the so-called “Seventeen Panditas of Nālandā”: great masters closely associated with the ancient Indian monastic universities of Odantapuri, Vikramaśilā, and Nālandā proper. This list of 17 most prominent figures was created and popularized by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who frequently refers to himself as a follower of the intellectual and practical tradition established by these great scholar-practitioners. Interestingly enough, some of these masters, like Atīśa, were not from Nālandā itself, and had stronger ties to Vikramaśilā, and, to a lesser degree, Odantapuri. Others, like Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva, quite likely predate Nālandā as the great institution that it later came to be. However, since the works of all these scholars have frequently been used side by side, and since their lineages of transmission almost inevitably pass through Nālandā proper, the common name of “Nālandā tradition” is used to refer to their intellectual legacy as a whole.
Āryadeva, the master with one eye
While the first place in the list of these 17 masters is rightfully occupied by Nāgārjuna, the second belongs to his heart son Āryadeva: the “noble divine one”, to translate his name literally. In his praise of the 17 sages of Nālandā, His Holiness the Dalai Lama describes this master in the following way:
I call to mind the bodhisattva Aryadeva,[Text Wrapping Break]His [i.e. Nāgārjuna’s] principal spiritual son, peerlessly learned and accomplished,[Text Wrapping Break]Who traversed the ocean of Buddhist and other philosophical systems,[Text Wrapping Break]Who is the glorious crowning jewel amongst all the holders of Nagarjuna’s teachings.
(Translated by Geshe Lhakdor)
Historical research places Āryadeva somewhere between 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, close to the peak (or later period) of Nāgārjuna’s activity as a writer and teacher. Like many other Buddhist scholars of that era, including Śāntideva and Atīśa, Āryadeva was said to hail from a royal family, in this case of Sinhala (modern day Sri Lanka)—although there are different opinions on whether he was born from a mother’s womb or just miraculously appeared in a lotus flower like Padmasambhava. In either case, future Āryadeva was a member of the ruling clan who gave up his connection to royalty in order to study and practice the Dharma. Having mastered the Three Baskets (or Tripitaka: the teachings of Vinaya, Sūtra and Abhidharma), he sought to gain even deeper understanding and eventually received both sutric and tantric teachings from Nāgārjuna, using them to deepen his own experience and to excel in debate against the non-Buddhist tenet systems. The latter was still necessary to protect the tradition and also ensure the continuous flow of royal support.
Āryadeva’s mastery as a debater and the incredible sharpness of his intellect are highlighted in one of the main legends associated with his life: the story of him losing an eye and winning a battle against Matrcheta (sometimes identified as Aśvaghoṣa, the author of a famous biography of the Buddha). As the story goes, Matrcheta, who was originally a devotee of Shiva, was consistently victorious in his debates with Buddhist monastics, which meant that they (in following the rules of debate) had to convert to his teachings and propitiate Shiva as well. Receiving the Buddhist plea for help and setting out on the path, Āryadeva received some last-moment coaching from Nāgārjuna (which led the student to arrogantly proclaim himself the winner), along with a cryptic prophecy: “Along the way, you will have to make a sacrifice; but if you do so without regret, that which you lost will restored to you.”
While traveling to the place of the debate with his powers of swift movement, Āryadeva came across a woman who needed the eye of a monk in order to gain certain worldly attainments. Pulling the eye out (which already shows a great degree of composure), he generously gave it away, but felt regret when he looked back and saw that she was crushing the eye with a stone. It was this fairytale-like (or Greek myth-like) act that left Āryadeva one-eyed for the rest of his life—which, while greatly inconvenient practice, might carry the symbolic meaning of having the eye of non-dual wisdom. Despite this misadventure along the way, Āryadeva was successful in using his great wisdom and his miraculous powers to defeat Matrcheta and ward off Shiva’s attempts to help his champion. Eventually, Matrcheta was forced to accept defeat and study under Āryadeva, feeling great regret at the thought of harm that he’s brought by persecuting Buddhists and destroying their scriptures; combining his own intellectual prowess with the powerful teachings of his master, he too is said to have become a master of the Dharma.
Interestingly enough, in commenting on Āryadeva’s missteps: regretting giving up the eye and feeling momentarily superior to Nāgārjuna, His Holiness suggests we take some aspects of the story with a grain of salt—or, rather, as something that requires further interpretation:
From another perspective, Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva were highly realized ārya bodhisattvas. Thus this story seems odd, for it appears to ignore Āryadeva’s mastery. Surely someone with his realizations would never have behaved like that toward his spiritual mentor. Nor would he have given one of his eyes to someone for whom it was of no benefit. Similarly, he would not have regretted his generosity afterward. Because this story makes Āryadeva appear imprudent, I question whether these events should be taken literally.
(Approaching the Buddhist Path, pp. 139-140)
Four Hundred Verses
The story of Āryadeva’s victory over Matrcheta demonstrates both his meditative achievements (which he needed to deal with the more magical aspects of the debate) and the incredible sharpness of his learned mind. It is this latter quality that made him a true heart-son of Nāgārjuna, whose teachings on the Middle Way can hardly be described as “easily accessible”. In fact, Āryadeva’s main work, Four Hundred Verses (or Catuḥśataka), was probably crafted as a bridge between Nāgārjuna’s profound vision of emptiness (expressed especially in his Root Verses of the Middle Way) and what regular beings can actually understand and train in. While making Nāgārjuna’s vision of reality more accessible (in relative terms) for a practitioner on the path, Āryadeva is also teaching what the practice itself consists of: a gradual grinding away of the afflictive elements and unhelpful types of behavior. A famous summary of this approach is verse 190 of the text itself:
First prevent the demeritorious;
next prevent self;
later prevent views of all kinds.
Whoever knows of this is wise.
The full Tibetan name of the text, Four Hundred Verse Śāstra on the Conduct of Bodhisattva Yoga, implies that the text is a treatise for those with a Mahāyāna disposition. It is not a guidebook for Buddhism in general (let alone popular mindfulness), but a practice manual for those who want to eventually realize the two types of bodhicitta and arrive at full awakening for the benefit of all beings. The “yoga” part might not be immediately apparent, since the first four chapters of the text deal with philosophy—or, in fact, what we can call “philosophical intelligence”, the ability to use philosophy to interpret and perceive reality correctly. In these opening chapters (each of which has 25 verses, like all the other chapters of the text) Āryadeva helps us argue against four fundamental mistakes our mind constantly commits—the so-called “four distortions”:
1) Seeing impermanent as permanent
2) Seeing that which is polluted as pleasurable
3) Seeing the psychophysical aggregates as clean
4) Seeing aggregates as a proper basis for feeling pride
For a beginner, these contemplations might seem quite abstract, especially when taken as a basis for intellectual speculation not accompanied by deep personal reflections and meditation. The actual purpose of Āryadeva’s verses, however, is to make us contemplate and feel the truth of impermanence, non-pleasurability and so forth. Through integrating these four themes into our experience, we become a suitable vessel for the more advanced teachings on the bodhisattva path and emptiness; in this manner, Four Hundred Verses is actually a manual for the psychological transformation we need to undertake on the path: first through contemplating the four distortions, then through mastering the bodhisattva virtues, and eventually through cognizing emptiness directly.
Recalling her own earliest experiences of meditating on the very first chapter of the Four Hundred, Venerable Thubten Chodron shares a very down-to-earth story:
My neighbor at that time was a young woman who loved to play her radio very loud. And It used to drive me kind of crazy, but when I was meditating on this text it ceased driving me crazy. It was like, “Well, the sound is impermanent. My life is impermanent. I don’t want to be thinking about the sound when I die, so I’m not going to even think about it when I’m alive.” And so all these different things that usually the mind would get anxious or fearful or worried about, I began to be able to see them from a completely different perspective. That they’re just things of this life and that Dharma is definitely more important. And so that made the mind stop the worry and the fear and the anxiety.
Summarizing the overall experience of studying the text in Dharamsala in the 1970s, she adds:
And I remember that time period as one of the times when my mind has been the most calm, the most peaceful.
Despite the importance of the four distortions—and the contemplations that serve as their antidote—on the path, Catuḥśataka, as a guide for the Mahāyāna path, does not in any way limit itself to them. Chapters 5 through 8 focus on the virtuous conduct of the bodhisattva—something that also belongs to the category of conventional truth and helps a practitioner build a solid foundation for insight into the ultimate. From chapter 9 onwards Āryadeva focuses on unpacking (or, perhaps, “repackaging”) the emptiness teachings of Nāgārjuna, presenting them, once again, as a foundation for practice, in this case the practice of meditative vipaśyanā. In a way, Catuḥśataka is a complete, time-tested textbook for developing the conventional and ultimate types of wisdom while also undertaking the elaborate virtuous activity of a true bodhisattva. While not as simple and accessible as the lamrim texts created by Tibetan authors (or even Śāntideva’s Way of the Bodhisattva), it still has all the features of a practice manual that can be deeply transformative to a diligent practitioner led a skillful guide.
As a final note, the benefit we can derive from a śāstra like Catuḥśataka is directly dependent on both our own diligence and the qualifications of the teacher unpacking the material for us. Āryadeva’s style, while brilliant and sharp in its ability to challenge our assumptions, is characteristic of the age he lived in and is therefore not easily accessible to a modern reader. Receiving an elaborate commentary that we can then weave into our meditation serves as the main way to integrate the insights of the Nālandā masters into our own life and our gradual progression towards enlightenment.
To learn more about the upcoming course and sign up, click here.
