Kamalaśīla 蓮華戒 (Sanskrit Kamalaśīla “Lotus-Conduct”; honorifically bodhisattva / 菩薩 in Sòng Chinese transmissions; c. 740–795) was a major late-Indian Buddhist philosopher of the Madhyamaka school, pupil of Śāntarakṣita and his successor as the leading representative of the Yogācāra-Svātantrika-Madhyamaka synthesis. He is principally known to history for two contributions: (1) his trilogy of Bhāvanā-krama (“Stages of Cultivation”), the first of which survives in Sanskrit, all three in Tibetan translation, and a parallel/related work in Chinese as the Guǎng-shì pútí-xīn lùn 廣釋菩提心論 (KR6o0069, translated by 施護 in the Sòng); and (2) his role as the principal Indian disputant at the bSam-yas debate (792–794) at the court of the Tibetan king Khri-srong-lde-btsan, where he defended the gradualist position of the Indian Mahāyāna against the Chinese Chan master Mo-ho-yen 摩訶衍’s instantaneous-awakening doctrine. According to traditional Tibetan sources, Kamalaśīla was assassinated in Tibet in 795 by partisans of the defeated Chinese side. His other major works are commentaries on Śāntarakṣita’s Tattvasaṃgraha (the Tattvasaṃgraha-pañjikā) and on the Madhyamaka-ālaṃkāra. The Bhāvanā-krama trilogy is the principal documentary witness to the Madhyamaka position on graduated practice; the Chinese Guǎng-shì pútí-xīn lùn is one of the very few works of Kamalaśīla preserved outside the Tibetan tradition.