Dharmapāla (traditional Chinese: 護法, pinyin: Hùfǎ) (530–561 CE). A Buddhist scholar, he was one of the main teachers of the Yogacara school in India. He was a contemporary of Bhavaviveka (清辯, c. 490-570 CE.), with whom he debated. Xuanzang, the famous Chinese pilgrim, tells that Dharmapāla was born in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. He was a son of a high official, and betrothed to a daughter of the king, but escaped on the eve of the wedding feast, entered the order, studied all views, from Hinayana as well as Mahayana, and attained to reverence and distinction. He studied in Nalanda as a student of Dignāga. Later he succeeded him as abbot of the University. He spent his last years near the Bodhi tree, where he died. Dharmapāla developed the theory that the external things do ultimately not exist on their own, and mental representations only exists. He explains the experience of the phenomenal world as arising from the eight consciousness. Through the teachings of his disciple Silabhadra to Xuanzang, Dharmapāla’s tenets expanded greatly in China. According to Chinese sources, Dharmapala wrote four works. One of these is a lost work on grammar. The other three, which only survive in Chinese, are the following commentaries: