Śākyaprabha was an eighth-century paṇḍit, possibly from Kashmir. He is said to have been a disciple of Śāntarakṣita, the Indian paṇḍit who ordained the first Tibetans monks. No other details of his life are available.
An expert on the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, he composed dozens of texts preserved in the Tengyur, chief among them the Āryamūlasarvāstivādi-śrāmaṇerakārikā, or Verses for Novices of the Noble Mūlasarvāstivādins. In 230 verses, the text has over 250 quotations from the Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya offered as guidance to novice monks.1 Śākyaprabha composed an autocommentary to this work, Āryamūlasarvāstivādiśrāmaṇerakārikā-vṛttiprabhāvatī, or Illuminating Commentary of the Verses for Novices of the Noble Mūlasarvāstivādins.
He collaborated on the translation of at least texts in the tantra and sūtra sections of the Kangyur. He worked with the prolific Tibetan translator Yeshe De (ye shes sde) on the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra (D258). With Dharmatāśīla and the Chinese monk Tong Ācārya he translated the Aṅgulimālīyasūtra (D213). He also collaborated on translations of dozens of texts in the Tengyur, including Madhyamaka works by Nāgārjuna and Aśvaghoṣa, works in the Cittamatra section by Ratnākaraśānti, and works in the tantric and pramāna sections by his own master, Śāntarakṣita.
Tibetans count him as one of the "two excellent ones" alongside Guṇaprabha.
1 Emms, 2017.
Bibliography
Emms, Christopher. "Canonical Vinaya Quotations in the Work of Śākyaprabha." Talk delivered at the International Association of Buddhist Studies annual meeting, Toronto, August 2017.