Bodhi(sattva)caryāvatāra and Śikṣāsamuccaya

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Bodhi(sattva)caryāvatāra and Śikṣāsamuccaya
Journal Article
Śāntideva's Works


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Description

This article examines the textual relationship between the Bodhicaryāvatāra (BCA) and the Śikṣāsamuccaya, two important Mahāyāna Buddhist texts traditionally attributed to Śāntideva (8th century CE). Focusing on BCA verses V.104-106, which reference both the Śikṣāsamuccaya and the Sūtrasamuccaya, the author analyzes the chronological and compositional connections between these works. The study compares multiple recensions of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, including a 9th-century Tibetan version of 702.5 verses (BSA I) attributed to Akṣayamati, and later 10th-century versions of 913 verses (BSA II and III). Through philological analysis of Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese sources, as well as examination of commentarial traditions, the article addresses questions of authorship and the historical development of these texts within the bodhisattva training literature. The study challenges earlier scholarly assumptions about the composition and transmission of these foundational works of Buddhist ethical philosophy.
Citation
Saito, Akira. "Bodhi(sattva)caryāvatāra and Śikṣāsamuccaya." Indo Tetsugaku Bukkyōgaku (Hokkaido Journal of Indological and Buddhist Studies) 16 (2001): 1–28.
Interconnections
2 Scholarship on
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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.
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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.)