Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice

🤓 Admin Zone 🛠️ hidden to non-admins
view on research edit on research Add an excerpt Add a bilingual page Add full text subpage

Book

Śāntideva's Life and Cultural World

LibraryBooksBibliography PDF Link

Please note that many items in our library are simply pages that represent a detailed library catalog entry and citation of someone else's work, presentation, or performance. Read our General Disclaimer for more information. You can find more information about this item on the publisher website.

People

Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

Śāntideva’s eighth-century work, the Guide to Bodhisattva Practice (Bodhicaryāvatāra), is known for its eminently practical instructions and its psychologically vivid articulations of the Mahāyāna path. It is a powerful, succinct poem into which are woven diverse Buddhist traditions of moral transformation, meditative cultivation, and philosophical insight. Since its composition, it has seen continuous use as a ritual, contemplative, and philosophical manual, making it one of the crucial texts of the Buddhist ethical and philosophical tradition.

This book serves as a companion to this Indian Buddhist classic. The fifteen essays contained here illuminate the Guide’s many philosophical, literary, ritual, and ethical dimensions. Distinguished scholars discuss the historical significance of the text as an innovative piece of Indian literature, illuminate the important roles it played in shaping Buddhism in Tibet, and bring to light its contemporary significance for philosophy and psychology. Whether experienced or first-time students of Buddhist literature, readers will find compelling new approaches to this resonant masterpiece. (Source: Columbia University Press)

Citation

Gold, Jonathan C., and Douglas S. Duckworth, eds. Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Publisher Link

https://cup.columbia.edu/book/readings-of-sntidevas-guide-to-bodhisattva-practice/9780231192675

Table of contents

A Note to the Readerix
Acknowledgmentsxi

Introduction. Participatory Authorship and Communal Interpretation: The Bodhicaryāvatāra as a "World Classic"1
- Jonathan C. Gold
1. Śāntideva: The Author and His Project27
- Paul Harrison
2. Reason and Knowledge on the Path: A Protreptic Reading of the Guide45
- Amber Carpenter
3. On Learning to Overhear the "Vanishing Poet"60
- Sonam Kachru
4. An Intoxication of Mouse Venom: Reading the Guide, Chapter 984
- Matthew T. Kapstein
5. Seeing from All Sides99
- Janet Gyatso
6. Bodies and Embodiment in the Bodhicaryāvatāra114
- Reiko Ohnuma
7. Ritual Structure and Material Culture in the Guide to Bodhisattva Practice132
- Eric Huntington
8. Bodhicaryāvatāra and Tibetan Mind Training (Lojong)146
- Thupten Jinpa
9. Taming Śāntideva: Tsongkhapa's Use of the Bodhicaryāvatāra162
- Roger Jackson
10. The Middle Way of the Bodhisattva180
- Douglas S. Duckworth
11. Seeing Sentient Beings: Śāntideva's Moral Phenomenology192
- Jay L. Garfield
12. Śāntideva's Ethics of Impartial Compassion209
- Charles Goodman
13. Śāntideva and the Moral Psychology of Fear221
- Bronwyn Finnigan
14. Innate Human Connectivity and Śāntideva's Cultivation of Compassion235
- John D. Dunne

Appendix 1: A Guide to Guide Translations: Advice for Students and Instructors253
Appendix 2: Index of Guide Verses Cited257
Bibliography271
Contributors285
Index291

Interconnections

Works related to this item

All 16Articles 15Classical Works 1

14 Contains chapter or part

Kapstein, Matthew T. "An Intoxication of Mouse Venom: Reading the Guide, Chapter 9." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 84–98. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

This chapter in Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice concerns Śāntideva's understanding of emptiness as articulated in the ninth chapter of the Bodhicaryāvatāra.

Jinpa, Thupten. "Bodhicaryāvatāra and Tibetan Mind Training (Lojong)." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 146–61. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

Thupten Jinpa analyzes the complex relationship between the Bodhicaryāvatāra and lojong (mind training) and how the Guide may have shaped lojong's development.

Ohnuma, Reiko. "Bodies and Embodiment in the Bodhicaryāvatāra." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 114–31. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

Investigates the notion of "embodiment" in the Bodhicaryāvatāra in the sense of the physical bodies involved in the attainment of buddhahood and attitudes toward the body.

Dunne, John D. "Innate Human Connectivity and Śāntideva's Cultivation of Compassion." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 235–51. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019. https://centerhealthyminds.org/assets/files-publications/dunne-innate-connectivity.pdf.

Articles2019About this item

John Dunne argues that for Śāntideva the cultivation of compassion is a matter of disrupting the cognitive models that inhibit the innate capacity to sense and respond to all suffering.

Kachru, Sonam. "On Learning to Overhear the 'Vanishing Poet'." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 60–83. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

In this chapter Sonam Kachru offers a tentative orientation to the Bodhicaryāvatāra as literature, focussing particularly on verses from chapter 8.

Carpenter, Amber. "Reason and Knowledge on the Path: A Protreptic Reading of the Guide." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 45–59. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

Amber Carpenter illustrates how the Bodhicaryāvatāra may be read as a protreptic text—that is, it does something to the audience, reorienting us toward a comprehension of reality.

Huntington, Eric. "Ritual Structure and Material Culture in the Guide to Bodhisattva Practice." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 132–45. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

This chapter by Eric Huntington investigates the overall ritual structure of the Bodhicaryāvatāra and describes material practices that correspond to specific passages.

Garfield, Jay L. "Seeing Sentient Beings: Śāntideva's Moral Phenomenology." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold, and Douglas S. Duckworth, 192–208. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

Explores the idea moral phenomenology and Santideva's account of moral cultivation, the uses of moral phenomenology, and the bodhisattva vows in the contemporary world.

Gyatso, Janet. "Seeing from All Sides." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 99–113. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

Janet Gyatso explores Śāntideva's presentation of exchanging oneself with another, focusing upon his literary strategies to create in his readers the capacity to perform this practice.

Jackson, Roger. "Taming Śāntideva: Tsongkhapa's Use of the Bodhicaryāvatāra." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 162–79. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

In this chapter Roger Jackson examines Tsongkhapa's treatment of the Bodhicaryāvatāra in his 1402 magnum opus, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Awakening.

Duckworth, Douglas S. "The Middle Way of the Bodhisattva." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 180–91. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

Douglas Duckworth discusses the role and implications of "existing on its own" as the main principle guiding Künzang Sönam's interpretation of the Bodhicaryāvatāra.

Finnigan, Bronwyn. "Śāntideva and the Moral Psychology of Fear." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 221–34. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

Examines verses in BCA chaps. 2 and 7 aimed at inciting fear and argues this is done with an aim of transforming egoistic self-concern into altruistic self-other concern.

Goodman, Charles. "Śāntideva's Ethics of Impartial Compassion." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 209–20. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

In this chapter Charles Goodman attempts to ascertain where Śāntideva's ethical views might fit in the space of ethical theories that are defended today.

Harrison, Paul. "Śāntideva: The Author and His Project." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 27–44. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Articles2019About this item

Paul Harrison argues that the Bodhicaryāvatāra and the Śikṣāsamuccaya serve a common agenda, and that neither work can be fully understood independently of the other.

1 Reviews

Harris, Stephen. Review of Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth. Journal of Buddhist Ethics 27 (2020): 169–75. http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2020/06/Harris_Review_of_Gold_Duckworth_Readings_of_Santideva.pdf.

Articles2020About this item

Stephen Harris's review of Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth. Published in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics.

1 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.