The Path of Light (1909)

The Path of Light (1909)

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

The following pages contain an abridged translation of the original Sanskrit of the Bodhicharyāvatāra, based upon two editions, that contained in vol. ii. of the Journal of the Buddhist Text Society (Calcutta, 1894) and that published with Pranjākara-mati's commentary by Professor L. de la Vallée Poussin in the Bibliotheca Indica.[1] I have omitted a good deal of the text where it seemed needlessly prolix, and the whole of the scholastic disputation which makes up the bulk of the ninth chapter. But I hope that even in this curtailed form my translation will enable readers to understand and fairly appreciate the fervent devotion and brotherly love which make this little book, in spite of its errors, a lasting monument of true religious emotion, " an everlasting possession." (Barnett, introduction, 35–36)

Notes

1. I have much pleasure in acknowledging my debt of gratitude to Professor Poussin's masterly French translation of the text published in the Revue d'Histoire et de Littérature Religieuses, vols. x.-xii. (1905-1907) under the title Bodhicaryāvatāra: Introduction à la Pratique des futurs Bouddhas.

Citation

Barnett, Lionel David, trans. The Path of Light: Rendered for the First Time from the Bodhi-charyāvatāra of Śānti-Deva; A Manual of Mahā-yāna Buddhism. Wisdom of the East. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1909.

Texts Translated

1. Shastri, Hara Prasad, ed. "Bodhicaryāvatāram." Journal and Text of the Buddhist Society of India 2, pt. 1 (1894): 1-16; and in the same volume, pt. 2, 17–32. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924081588240&view=2up&seq=34&size=150.
2. La Vallée Poussin, Louis de, ed. Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā: Prajñākaramati's Commentary to the Bodhicaryāvatāra of C̜āntideva; An Introductory Treatise on the Duties of a Buddhist. Bibliotheca Indica 150. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1901-14. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101046823025&view=2up&seq=8.

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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

Other editions

 

The Path of Light (1959)

Lionel T. Barnett's English translation of the Bodhicaryāvatāra based upon the Sanskrit editions edited by Louis de la Vallée Poussin and Hara Prasad Shastri.

Book

• Chap.PAGE

• • INTRODUCTION7

• l. THE PRAISE OF THE THOUGHT OF ENLIGHTENMENT37

• II. THE CONFESSION OF SIN40

• III. TAKING THE THOUGHT OF ENLIGHTENMENT44

• IV. HEEDFULNESS IN THE THOUGHT OF ENLIGHTENMENT48

• V. WATCHFULNESS53

• VI. THE PERFECT LONG-SUFFERING59

• VII. THE PERFECT STRENGTH73

• VIII. THE PERFECT CONTEMPLATION82

• IX. THE PERFECT KNOWLEDGE92

• NOTES95

• APPENDIX103

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

Go to the page with the definition of 'Śāntideva'

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.

Go to the page with the definition of 'Śāntideva'

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.

Go to the page with the definition of 'Śāntideva'

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

Go to the page with the definition of 'Śāntideva'

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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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.

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

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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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Bodhi - Enlightenment or awakening. In Tibetan it is translated as "purified" (byang) and "perfected" (chub), which corresponds to Siddhartha Gautama's achievement of purifying all obscurations and perfecting or attaining all qualities associated with a buddha. Skt बोधि  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་  Ch 菩提; 悟 and 覺  

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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  

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  

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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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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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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