The Bodhicaryāvatāra: A Guide to the Buddhist Path to Awakening

The Bodhicaryāvatāra: A Guide to the Buddhist Path to Awakening

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

This translation of Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra was an important contribution to the field in the 1990s and was translated primarily from the Sanskrit text with reference to Louis de la Vallée Poussin's critical edition of the Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā, Prajñākaramati's commentary on the root text. Along with the general introduction and translator's introduction, each chapter also has an introduction giving an overview of the chapter with content of interest and some 50 pages of notes, making it a useful contribution to the study of Śāntideva and the text. See Gomez's critique of the translation in his article "The Way of the Translators: Three Recent Translations of Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra (1999)".

Written in India in the early 8th century AD, Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra addresses the profound desire to become a Buddha and rescue all beings from suffering. The person who acts upon such a desire is a Bodhisattva. Śāntideva not only makes plain what the Bodhisattva must do and become, he also invokes the powerful feelings of aspiration that underlie such a commitment, employing language which has inspired Buddhists ever since it first appeared. Indeed, his book has long been regarded as one of the most popular accounts of the Buddhist's spiritual path. Important as a manual of training among Mahāyāna Buddhists, especially in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, this text continues to be used as the basis for teaching by modern Buddhist teachers. This new translation from the original language provides detailed annotations explaining allusions and technical references. Also, the Introduction both serve to locate Śāntideva's work in its proper context, and for the first time explain its structure. (Source: Oxford University Press)

Citation

Crosby, Kate, and Andrew Skilton, trans. The Bodhicaryāvatāra: A Guide to the Buddhist Path to Awakening. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. https://archive.org/details/bodhicharyavataraofsantidevakratecrosbyandrewskiltonoup_983_f/mode/2up.

Publisher Link

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bodhicaryavatara-9780199540433?type=listing&subjectcode1=1793239%7CAHU00010&subjectcode2=1802835%7CAHU03020&lang=en&cc=us

Texts Translated

1. La Vallée Poussin, L., ed. Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā: Prajñākaramati's Commentary to the Bodhicaryāvatāra of Çāntideva; An Introductory Treatise on the Duties of a Buddhist. Bibliotheca Indica 150, fascicles 983, 1031, 1090, 1126, 1139, 1305, 1399. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1914.

For the Tibetan text, see:

1. Śāntideva (zhi ba lha). Bodhicaryāvatāra (Byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa). In Derge Tengyur D3871, dbu ma, vol. 105, la 1b1–40a7. See rKTs etexts, Columbia AIBS, ACIP etexts, .

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Translation of

 

Bodhicaryāvatāraབྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།

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.

Text

Reviews

 

The Bodhicaryāvatāra: A Guide to the Buddhist Path to Awakening-Review by Gethin

This is Rupert Gethin's review of Andrew Skilton and Kate Crosby's English translation of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, published by Oxford University Press, 1996.

Article

 

The Way of the Translators: Three Recent Translations of Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra

Luis Gómez discusses three translations of the Bodhicaryāvatāra: Crosby and Skilton (1996), the Padmakara Translation Group (1997), and Wallace and Wallace (1997).

Article

• General Introduction: Śāntideva and His Worldvii
• Translator's Introductionxxvii
  • The Structure of the Bodhicaryāvatāraxxix
  • Concerning the Translationxxxv
  • The Sanskrit Text and Prajñākaramati's Commentaryxl
• Note on Pronunciationxliii
• Acknowledgementsxlv
• Select Bibliographyxlvi

• The BODHICARYĀVATĀRA

• • 1. Praise of the Awakening Mind3
  • 2. Confession of Faults9
  • 3. Adopting the Awakening Mind20
  • 4. Vigilance regarding the Awakening Mind23
  • 5. The Guarding of Awareness30
  • 6. The Perfection of Forbearance45
  • 7. The Perfection of Vigour63
  • 8. The Perfection of Meditative Absorption75
  • 9. The Perfection of Understanding105
  • 10. Dedication133

• Notes to the Text145

Potter, Karl H. ed. "Śāntideva." In Bibliography: Part 1, Texts Whose Authors Can Be Dated; Authors Listed Chronologically, 5th through 9th Century. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies. Online edition. Last updated Apr 15, 2020. https://faculty.washington.edu/kpotter/xtxt2.htm.

Go to the page with the definition of 'Śāntideva'

Lele, Amod. "Śāntideva." In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. Accessed Feb. 11, 2021. https://iep.utm.edu/santideva/.

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Tsukamoto, Keisho, Yukei Matsunaga, and Hirofumi Isoda, eds. "Śāntideva." In A Descriptive Bibliography of the Sanskrit Buddhist Literature. Vol. 3, Abhidharma, Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, Buddhist Epistemology and Logic, 250–69. Kyoto: Heirakuji-Shoten, 1990.

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Lang, Karen. "Śāntideva." In Buddhist Philosophy from 600 to 750 A.D., edited by Karl H. Potter, 137–39. Vol. 21 of Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2017.

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Goodman, Charles. "Śāntideva." In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed March 15, 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/shantideva/

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Potter, Karl H., David J. Kalupahana, and Michael J. Sweet. "Śāntideva." In Buddhist Philosophy from 600 to 750 A.D., edited by Karl H. Potter, 516–25. Vol. 21 of Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2017.

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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.

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Weeraratne, D. Amarasiri. "Bodhicaryāvatāra." The Maha-Bodhi 79, nos. 2–3 (1971): 406–9.

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Prajñākaramati (ཤེས་རབ་འབྱུང་གནས་བློ་གྲོས་). Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā [बोधिचर्यावतारपञ्जिका]. byang chub kyi spyod pa la 'jug pa'i dka' 'grel [བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པའི་དཀའ་འགྲེལ།]. [A Commentary on the Difficult Points of (Śāntideva’s) "Entering into the Deeds of a Bodhisattva" (84000)]. Translated by Gnyan lo tsA ba, Sumatikīrti, Mar pa do pa chos kyi dbang phyug. Tengyur, RKTST 3217 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3217&typ=2.

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Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Mahāyāna - Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion. Skt महायान  Tib ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ།  Ch 大乘  

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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.

Go to the page with the definition of 'བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'bodhisattva'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Bodhicitta - The altruistic thought to seek enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is said to have two aspects: compassion aimed at sentient beings and their problems and the wisdom of enlightenment as the solution. Skt बोधिचित्त  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས།  Ch 菩提心  

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Pāramitā - The six or ten types of practices which lead an individual to Buddhahood. The practice of perfections is particularly important in Mahāyāna Buddhism in which the entire path of the Bodhisattva to reach full enlightenment is included in the six or ten perfections. The six perfections are that of giving, of discipline, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom. The perfection of skill-in-means, aspirations, power, and pristine wisdom are added to them to make ten perfections. Skt पारमिता  Tib ཕར་ཕྱིན། and ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ།  Ch 波羅蜜  

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