ABSTRACT
The exact dates of Fantideva’s life are not known, but historical evidence indicates that he must have lived sometime between the last half of the sixth and the first half of the seventh centuries CE, at a time when Mahayana was becoming “the main spirit and source of cultural activity of Indian Buddhism” (Joshi 1967: 3). Broadly speaking, since Fantideva is said to have been the pupil of Jayadeva, Dharmapala’s successor at Nalanda, he must not have lived before the time of Dharmapala (c.528-60) and not after about 800 CE, when the Fiksasamuccaya is known to have been translated into Tibetan (BR: v; Winternitz 1981: 340; Vaidya: vii). Further indication of a terminus ad quem is the fact that Fantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara is quoted in the Tattvasiddhi of Fantaraksita, who flourished in the eighth century (Ruegg 1981: 82 n266). Aside from this, little can be said with certainty, and the evidence presented to support a given view tends to be ambiguous. Vaidya (1961: viii), for example, claims that the use of the name Candrapradipa for the Samadhiraja-sutra in the Fiksasamuccaya suggests that Fantideva lived after Candrakirti, who knew the text as the Samadhiraja and is dated in the sixth century or seventh century (Ruegg 1981: 71; Winternitz 1981: 351). But since Candrapradipa is the original name of the sutra in question and Samadhiraja is the later name, one would more logically conclude, if anything, that Fantideva came before Candrakirti – a conclusion that would contradict all traditional chronologies of Buddhist thinkers (Sangharakshita 1985a: 199). Equally ambiguous is Taranatha’s statement that Fantideva lived during the reign of Fila, the son of King Harsa (c.650), based upon which Taranatha places Fantideva in the middle of the seventh century. However, Bendall (FS: iii) points out that no king named Fila is known to either Indian or Chinese sources. De Jong (1975: 179) further objects that Taranatha’s dates must be contradictory,
since Fantideva could not have been both a younger contemporary of Dharmapala (c.530-60 CE) and born during the reign of the son of King Harsa (c.650 CE). If Winternitz is correct, though, that Fantideva was not a contemporary of Dharmapala’s but a pupil of Jayadeva, Dharmapala’s successor, then as Bendall says, the period indicated by Taranatha might be possible, depending on how long one estimates Dharmapala and Jayadeva to have lived.
