Kay-drup Gelek Pelzang (མཁས་གྲུབ་རྗེ་)
The clearest and most philosophically interesting of the three foundational Ge-luk epistemological thinkers. Direct disciple of dzong-ka-ba.
Style and Significance
Dreyfus favours Kay-drup over gyel-tsap for several reasons: Kay-drup writes both commentaries and independent summaries; his style is clear and confrontational; he does not shy away from difficult points. His “biting tone” toward adversaries is characteristic of Tibetan dialectical culture, not personal hostility (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, pp. 30–31).
Kay-drup “forcefully engages issues” in a manner similar to sakya-chok-den on the Sa-gya side.
Contributions to Pramāṇa
- His Clearing modelled its outline on sakya-pandita’s Treasure, asserting that his realist interpretation represents Sakya Paṇḍita’s true intention
- Argued for the reality of continua and commonsense objects, against the strict momentariness of Sa-gya thinkers
- Reinterpreted momentariness as meaning objects “will not remain for a second moment after their time of establishment” (གྲུབ་དུས་) — not that they last only a single instant (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, pp. 112–113)
- The specifically-characterised: “that thing which exists from its own side according to its own uncommon essence without being imputed by a conceptual cognition” (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 117)
- Associated with the commentarial tradition of Devendrabuddhi
Sources
- dreyfus-recognizing-reality — used extensively as the primary Ge-luk voice