An Inquiry into the Relationship between the Śikṣāsamuccaya and the Bodhi(sattva)caryāvatāra

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:

It has traditionally been accepted that Śāntideva wrote both the Śikṣāsamuccaya and the Bodhi(sattva)caryāvatāra. As regards the relationship between these two works, the following three significant facts have so far been clarified by a number of contemporary studies:

(1) The Bodhi(sattva)caryāvatāra (BCA), Chapter V.105 refers to the Śikṣāsamuccaya (ŚS) and emphasizes the importance of its repeated reading since correct conduct is, it says, therein explained at length.

(2) The BCA and the ŚS share almost the same introductory verses composed of three successive stanzas in which the author(s) make vows at the outset of writing.

(3) Vibhūticandra (fl.ca.1200), Bu-ston (1290–1364), Tāranātha (1575–1608), and Sum-pa mkhan-po (1704–1776?) unanimously ascribe three works, the ŚS, the Sūtrasamuccaya (SūtraS) and the BCA, to Śāntideva.

However, the recent discovery of an early recension of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra (BSA), which has so far been identified only in the Tibetan manuscripts from Dūn-huáng, has rather dramatically changed the situation.[1] Having discussed the above first and third points in several earlier articles,[2] I would like to confine myself here to dealing with the second point and the related interaction between the ŚS and the BSA/BCA, while referring also to the probable chronological order of the BSA,the ŚS, and the BCA. (Saito, preliminary remarks, 17)

Notes

For a list of references on the early recension of BSA, see Saito [2000] pp.107–108.
Saito [2001][2004].

Citation

Saito, Akira. "An Inquiry into the Relationship between the Śikṣāsamuccaya and the Bodhi(sattva)caryāvatāra." Studies in Indian Philosophy and Buddhism 17 (2010): 17–24.

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Works related to this item

2 Scholarship on

Śāntideva (ཞི་བ་ལྷ་). Bodhicaryāvatāra [बोधिचर्यावतार]. byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa [བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།]. [The Way of the Bodhisattva]. Tengyur, RKTST 3216 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3216&typ=2.

Classical WorksAbout this item

An "Introduction to Bodhisattva Practice," the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra is a poem about the path of a bodhisattva, in ten chapters, written by the Indian Buddhist Śāntideva (fl. c. 685–763). One of the masterpieces of world literature, it is a core text of Mahāyāna Buddhism and continues to be taught, studied, and commented upon in many languages and by many traditions around the world. The main subject of the text is bodhicitta, the altruistic aspiration for enlightenment, and the path and practices of the bodhisattva, the six perfections (pāramitās). The text forms the basis of many contemporary discussions of Buddhist ethics and philosophy.

Śāntideva (ཞི་བ་ལྷ་). Śikṣāsamuccaya [शिक्षासमुच्चय]. bslab pa kun las btus pa [བསླབ་པ་ཀུན་ལས་བཏུས་པ།]. [The Compendium of Training]. Tengyur, RKTST 3281 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3281&typ=2.

Classical WorksAbout this item

Śikṣāsamuccaya (T. Bslab pa kun las btus pa; C. Dasheng ji pusa xue lun; J. Daijōjū bosatsugakuron; K. Taesǔng chip posal hak non 大乘集菩薩學論). In Sanskrit, "Compendium of Training," a work by the eighth-century Indian Mahāyāna master Śāntideva. It consists of twenty-seven stanzas on the motivation and practice of the bodhisattva, including bodhicitta, the six perfections (pāramitā), the worship of buddhas and bodhisattvas, the benefits of renunciation, and the peace derived from the knowledge of emptiness (śūnyatā). The topic of each of the stanzas receives elaboration in the form of a prose commentary by the author as well as in illustrative passages, often quite extensive, drawn from a wide variety of Mahāyāna sūtras. Some ninety-seven texts are cited in all, many of which have been lost in their original Sanskrit, making the Śikṣāsamuccaya an especially important source for the textual history of Indian Buddhism. These citations also offer a window into which sūtras were known to a Mahāyāna author in eighth-century India. The digest of passages that Śāntideva provides was repeatedly drawn upon by Tibetan authors in their citations of sūtras. Although Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra and Śikṣāsamuccaya both deal with similar topics, the precise relation between the two texts is unclear. Several of the author's verses appear in both texts and some of the sūtra passages from the Śikṣāsamuccaya also appear in the Bodhicaryāvatāra. One passage in the Bodhicaryāvatāra also refers readers to the Śikṣāsamuccaya, but this line does not occur in the Dunhuang manuscript of the text and may be a later interpolation. (Source: "Śikṣāsamuccaya." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 821. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)