Reading Room

Reading Room

Multilingual Editions of Root Verses & Commentaries

 

Bodhicaryāvatāra

You will find here the full list of verses of the Bodhicaryāvatāra in Tibetan and from Padmakara's 2006 english translation and links to various versions as they become available.

Root Verses

 

The Nectar of Manjushri's Speech

Khenpo Kunzang Palden's commentary to the Bodhicaryāvatāra translated by the Padmakara Translation Group.

Commentary

 

A Commentary on Shantideva's Engaging in the Conduct of the Bodhisattvas

This volume contains an English translation of a famous commentary by the great Sakya scholar Sazang Mati Panchen, which provides both a concise overview of Buddhist philosophy, and a clear verse-by-verse commentary. A foreword by His Holiness Sakya Trizin guides the reader to the heart of the work, which is the development of the resolve to cultivate wisdom and compassion in order to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.

Commentary

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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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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Sakya - The Sakya tradition developed in the eleventh century in the Khön family of Tsang, which maintained an imperial-era lineage of Vajrakīla and which adopted a new teaching from India known as Lamdre. Tib ས་སྐྱ་  

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Prajñā - One of the key terms for wisdom or knowledge, most often having the sense of insight, transcendent knowledge, or perhaps gnosis. In some contexts it can also refer to cognition or intellectual understanding. Skt प्रज्ञा  Tib ཤེས་རབ་  Ch 般若  

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Karuṇā - The profound wish for all sentient beings to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. It is a core virtue in Buddhism and, in the Mahāyāna tradition, develops into 'great compassion' (mahākaruṇā), the driving force behind the pursuit of enlightenment for the benefit of others. Skt करुणा  Tib ཐུགས་རྗེ་  Ch 悲  

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