No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
Conceptions of what a good human life would be, and advice about how to live in better ways, are central concerns of the Buddhist tradition and appear in the works of most major Buddhist authors.[1] Yet of all the many and various Buddhist teachers whose writings have come down to us, only one has yet been shown to have engaged in sustained, general theoretical reflection about the nature and source of moral normativity. This is Śāntideva, a North Indian monk who is thought to have lived in the eighth century CE and to have practiced at Nālandā, one of the most important centers of Buddhist scholarship at the time.
Two major texts are reliably attributed to Śāntideva. The Bodhicaryāvatāra, or Introduction to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life (henceforth BCA), is a religious and philosophical poem of great rhetorical power. Its refined literary qualities and sophisticated argumentation have made it one of the most popular and widely read texts in Buddhism. The Śikṣā-samuccaya, or Training Anthology (henceforth ŚS), consists mostly of a large number of quotations from Buddhist sūtras, with prose commentary and additional verses composed by Śāntideva. Though not as immensely influential as the BCA, this text is well known and often cited by Tibetan authors such as Tsong kha pa. As scholars have typically devoted much more attention to the BCA than to the ŚS, this essay, while considering both texts, will focus primarily on what we can learn from the ŚS about Śāntideva's understanding of ethical questions.
Both of these texts are primarily devoted to bringing about significant change in the reader: specifically, they seek to encourage an emotional transformation that will move practitioners away from the constantly changing reactive emotions (Skt. kleśa) that are characteristic of cyclic existence (saṃsāra) and toward the stable, blissful, compassionate awareness that is characteristic of Buddhas. Evocative, poetic passages, appeals to scriptural authority, and compelling philosophical arguments are all intended to work together toward this goal. (Goodman, introduction, 327–28)
Notes
- Much of this essay is scheduled to be reprinted, in a somewhat different form, in the essay on "Philosophy in the Training Anthology" in my Training Anthology of Śāntideva: A Translation of the Śikṣā-samuccaya (Oxford University Press, New York, 2016) .
