The ''Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra'' or ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' ( sa, बोधिसत्त्वाचर्यावतार;
Tibetan: བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ་ ''byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa;''
Chinese: 入菩薩行論;
Japanese: 入菩薩行論) translated into English as ''A Guide to the
Bodhisattva's Way of Life'', is a
Mahāyāna
''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing br ...
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
text written c. 700 AD in Sanskrit verse by
Shantideva
Shantideva (Sanskrit: Śāntideva; ; ; mn, Шантидэва гэгээн; vi, Tịch Thiên) was an 8th-century CE Indian philosopher, Buddhist monk, poet, and scholar at the mahavihara of Nalanda. He was an adherent of the Mādhyamaka phil ...
(Śāntideva), a Buddhist monk at
Nālandā Monastic University in India which is also where it was composed.
Structure
It has ten chapters dedicated to the development of
bodhicitta
In Mahayana Buddhism, bodhicitta, ("enlightenment-mind" or "the thought of awakening"), is the mind (citta) that is aimed at awakening (bodhi), with wisdom and compassion for the benefit of all sentient beings. Bodhicitta is the defining quali ...
(the mind of enlightenment) through the practice of the
six perfections
6 is a number, numeral, and glyph.
6 or six may also refer to:
* AD 6, the sixth year of the AD era
* 6 BC, the sixth year before the AD era
* The month of June
Science
* Carbon, the element with atomic number 6
* 6 Hebe, an asteroid
Peop ...
(''Skt.'' Pāramitās). The text begins with a chapter describing the benefits of the wish to reach enlightenment. The sixth chapter, on the perfection of patient endurance (''Skt.''
), strongly criticizes anger and has been the subject of recent commentaries by
Robert Thurman
Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman (born August 3, 1941) is an American Buddhist author and academic who has written, edited, and translated several books on Tibetan Buddhism. He was the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at ...
and the
fourteenth Dalai Lama. Tibetan scholars consider the ninth chapter, "Wisdom", to be one of the most succinct expositions of the
Madhyamaka
Mādhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no ''svabhāva'' doctrine"), refers to a tradition of Buddhis ...
view.
The tenth chapter is used as one of the most popular Mahāyāna prayers.
Chapter summary
# The benefits of bodhicitta (the wish to reach full enlightenment for others)
# Purifying bad deeds
# Adopting the spirit of enlightenment
# Using conscientiousness
# Guarding awareness
# The practice of patience
# The practice of joyous effort
# The practice of meditative concentration
# The perfection of wisdom
# Dedication
Exegetical discourse and commentary
Many
Tibetan
Tibetan may mean:
* of, from, or related to Tibet
* Tibetan people, an ethnic group
* Tibetan language:
** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard
** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...
scholars, such as
Jamgön Ju Mipham Gyatso, have written commentaries on this text.
Commentaries and studies in English
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References
External links
A Reader's Guide to the Works in English related to the Bodhicaryāvatāra, on Shambhala PublicationsA Video Lecture Series by the Padmakara Translation Group's Wulstan Fletcher on the Bodhicaryāvatāra, on Shambhala.comMultilingual edition of Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, in the Bibliotheca Polyglotta
The Bodhicaryavatara
at BuddhaNet (Tibetan)
Bodhicharyavatara Series - Lotsawa HouseTranslation of five chapters of a famous Tibetan commentary by Khenpo KunpalBodhicaryāvatāra of Śāntideva: Sanskrit Buddhist textBodhisattvacharyavatara - A Guide to the Bodhisattvaʹs Way of Life (Translated into English by Stephen Batchelor)
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Mahayana texts
8th-century Indian books
Buddhist commentaries