Śāntideva

Śāntideva was a monk of the great monastic university of Nālandā in north India, probably in the early eighth century. Almost nothing is known of his life beyond a later legend: the monks, thinking him idle, asked him to recite a teaching in public in order to embarrass him, and he recited the Bodhicaryāvatāra, rising into the air as he reached its chapter on wisdom.

The Bodhicaryāvatāra, “Entering the Way of Awakening”, is a poem in ten chapters on the bodhisattva path, from the arising of the mind of awakening through the perfections of patience, energy and meditation to the perfection of wisdom, followed by a dedication. Its eighth chapter teaches the meditation of equalizing and exchanging self and others; its ninth gives a Madhyamaka analysis of emptiness. A second work, the Śikṣāsamuccaya, is an anthology of sūtra passages on the bodhisattva’s training.

The Bodhicaryāvatāra was translated into Tibetan and became one of the most studied and recited works in Tibetan Buddhism, where its teachings on compassion, patience and exchanging self and others are central to practice.

The poem is unusual in Buddhist literature for its personal voice: much of it is addressed by the author to himself, confessing his failings, exhorting his own mind and reflecting on death. Its ninth chapter, on wisdom, is among the most studied and debated passages of Indian Madhyamaka, and commentators in Tibet have argued over its arguments for centuries.