Atiśa

His Holiness Atiśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna
This distinctive portrait of Atiśa originated from a Kadam monastery in Tibet and was gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1933 by The Kronos Collections. In this graphic depiction, Atiśa holds a long, thin palm-leaf manuscript with his left hand, which probably symbolizes one of the many important texts he wrote, and he makes the gesture of teaching with his right hand.
Born	980 Bengal, Pala Empire (now in Bangladesh)
Died	1054 Nyêtang, Tibet (now in China)
Occupation	Buddhist teacher
Known for	The major figure in the establishment of the Sarma lineages in Tibet.

Atīśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna (Bengali: অতীশ দীপংকর শ্রীজ্ঞান; Standard Tibetan: ཇོ་བོ་རྗེ་དཔལ་ལྡན་ཨ་ཏི་ཤ།; Chinese: 燃燈吉祥智; pinyin: Rándēng Jíxiángzhì) (982 - 1054 CE) was a Buddhist Bengali religious leader and master. He was one of the major figures in the spread of 11th-century Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism in Asia and inspired Buddhist thought from Tibet to Sumatra. He is recognised as one of the greatest figures of classical Buddhism, and Atisa's chief disciple Dromtön was the founder of the Kadam School. Atisa is also considered to be a key figure in the establishment of the Sarma schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

Bikrampur, the most probable place for Atiśa's birthplace, was the capital of the Pala Empire as it had been of the ancient kingdoms of southeast Bengal. Though the city's exact location is not certain, it presently lies in the Munshiganj District of Bangladesh, and continues to be celebrated as an early center of Buddhist cultural, academic, and political life. Similar to Gautama Buddha, Atiśa was born into royalty. His father was a king known as Kalyana Shri and his mother was Shri Prabhavati. One of three royal brothers, Atiśa went by the name of Candragarbha during the first part of his life. In fact, it was not until he traveled to Guge and encountered King Jangchup Ö (Wylie: byang chub 'od, 984–1078) that he was given the name Atiśa.