Shantideva

Shantideva
Shantideva
Personal
Born	c. 685
Died	c. 763
Religion	Buddhism

Shantideva(Sanskrit:Śāntideva;Chinese:Tịch thiên;Tibetan:ཞི་བ་ལྷ།,THL:Zhiwa Lha;Mongolian:Шантидэва гэгээн;Vietnamese:Tịch Thiên) was an 8th-century CEIndian philosopher,Buddhist monk,poet,andscholarat themahaviharaofNalanda.He was an adherent of theMādhyamakaphilosophy ofNāgārjuna.

He is also considered to be one of the 84mahasiddhasand is known asBhusuku Pa( bố tô cố ba ).^[1]

Biography[edit]

TheZhansi Lunof theEast Asian Mādhyamakaidentifies two different individuals given the name "Shantideva": the founder of the AvaivartikaMahāyānika Sanghain 6th century CE (inSamataṭa,modernBangladesh) and a later Shantideva who studied atNalandain the 8th century CE and appears to be the source of the Tibetan biographies. Archaeological discoveries support this thesis.^[2]^[3]TwoTibetansources of the life of Shantideva are the historiansButon Rinchen DrubandTāranātha.Recent scholarship has brought to light a short Sanskrit life of Shantideva in a 14th-century CE Nepalese manuscript.^[4]An accessible account that follows the Butön closely can be found in Kunzang Pelden,The Nectar of Manjushri's speech.^[5]

Shantideva was born in theSaurastra(in modernGujarat), son of King Kalyanavarman, and he went by the name Śantivarman.^[6]

According toPema Chödrön,"Shantideva was not well liked at Nalanda."^[7]

Apparently he was one of those people who didn't show up for anything, never studying or coming to practice sessions. His fellow monks said that his three "realizations" were eating, sleeping, and shitting.^[7]

After being goaded into giving a talk to the entire university body, Shantideva deliveredThe Way of the Bodhisattva.^[7]

Works[edit]

Śikṣāsamuccaya[edit]

TheŚikṣāsamuccaya( "Training Anthology" ) is a prose work in nineteen chapters. It is organized as a commentary on twenty-seven short mnemonic verses known as theŚikṣāsamuccaya Kārikā.It consists primarily of quotations (of varying length) from sūtras, authoritative texts considered to be theword of the Buddha— generally those sūtras associated with Mahāyāna tradition, including theSamadhiraja Sutra.^[8]

Bodhicaryavatara[edit]

Shantideva is particularly renowned as the author of theBodhisattvacaryāvatāra.A variety of English translations exist, sometimes glossed as "A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life" or "Entering the Path of Enlightenment."^[9]It is a long poem describing the process of enlightenment from the first thought to fullbuddhahoodand is still studied byMahayanaandVajrayanaBuddhists today.

An introduction to and commentary on theBodhisattvacaryāvatāraby the14th Dalai LamacalledA Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Nightwas printed in 1994. A commentary on the Patience chapter was provided by the Dalai Lama inHealing Anger(1997), and his commentaries on the Wisdom chapter can be found inPracticing Wisdom(2004).Kunzang Paldenhas written a commentary based on that given byPatrul Rinpoche,translated by the Padmakara Translation Group. Patrul Rinpoche was a wandering monk of great scholarship, who dedicated his life to the propagation of theBodhisattvacaryāvatāra.^[10]

Philosophical views[edit]

Personal identity and free will[edit]

Following the Buddha, Śāntideva believed that an innate investment in an inherent, personal, self or essence is not only groundless but toxic. Goodman suggests that Śāntideva also touches on the problem offree willin theBodhicaryāvatāra,writing that "whatever transgressions (aparādha) and vile actions (pāpa) there are, all arise through the power of conditioning factors, while there is nothing that arises independently."^[11]

Ethical views[edit]

In line with his views on personal identity and the nature of the self, Śāntideva wrote that one ought to "stop all the present and future pain and suffering of all sentient beings, and to bring about all present and future pleasure and happiness", in what may have been "the very earliest clearly articulated statement of that view, preceding Jeremy Bentham by approximately a thousand years".^[11]

His basis for preferring altruism over egoism was that "the continuum of consciousness, like a queue, and the combination of constituents, like an army, are not real. The person who experiences suffering does not exist." Similarly, he asks, "when happiness is dear to me and others equally, what is so special about me that I strive after happiness only for myself?"^[11]

Footnotes[edit]

^Donald S. Lopez Jr. (28 May 2019).Seeing the Sacred in Samsara: An Illustrated Guide to the Eighty-Four Mahasiddhas.Shambhala. p. 125.ISBN 978-0-8348-4212-0.
^Rahsid, More Harunur (2012)."Deva Dynasty".InIslam, Sirajul;Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.).Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh(Second ed.).Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
^Bodhicaryāvatāra Historical Project Archived6 March 2016 at theWayback Machine
^Pezzali, Amalia (1968),Śāntideva Mystjique buddhiste des VII et VIIIe siècles,Florence: Vallechi Edtore
^Shantideva (1997),The Way of the Bodhisattva,translated by the Padmakara Translation Group, Boston l: Shambala,ISBN 1-57062-253-1
^Kunzang Pelden (2007),The Nectar of Manjushri's Speech. A Detailed Commentary on Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva,Shambala Publications, p. 17,ISBN 978-1-59030-439-6
^^a ^b ^c"Cutting Ties: The Fruits of Solitude".Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.Retrieved28 October2015.
^Amod Lele,"Śāntideva",Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
^The Way of the Bodhisattva: A Translation of the Bodhicharyavatara.Translated by the Padmakara Translation Group. Shambhala Publications. 2003.ISBN 1590300572.
^Kunzang Palden (2007),The Nectar of Manjushri's Speech. A Detailed Commentary on Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva,Shambala Publications,ISBN 978-1-59030-439-6
^^a ^b ^cGoodman, Charles (2016),"Śāntideva",in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.),The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(Fall 2016 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University,retrieved15 July2022

References[edit]

Shantideva (1997),The Way of the Bodhisattva,translated by the Padmakara Translation Group, Boston: Shambala,ISBN 1-57062-253-1
Shantideva (2002),Guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life: how to enjoy a life of great meaning and altruism,translation from Tibetan into English by Neil Elliot, Ulverston (UK); Glen Spey, N.Y.: Tharpa,ISBN 978-0-948006-89-0
Pema Chödrön(2005),No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva,commentary on Shantideva'sGuide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life,Boston: Shambhala,ISBN 1-59030-135-8
Tenzin Gyatso (14th Dalai Lama)(1994),A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night: A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life,Commentary on Shantideva'sGuide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life,Boston: Shambhala,ISBN 0-87773-971-4{{citation}}:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso(1980),Meaningful to Behold – The Bodhisattva's Way of Life,Ulverston (UK); Glen Spey, N.Y.: Tharpa,ISBN 0-948006-35-8
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso(2007) [2005],How to Solve Our Human Problems(US ed.), Tharpa Publications,ISBN 978-0-9789067-1-9
K. Crosby; A. Skilton (1996),The Bodhicaryāvatāra,Oxford: Oxford University Press,ISBN 0-19-282979-3
Stephen Batchelor(1979),A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life,Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives
Kunzang Pelden (2007),The Nectar of Manjushri's Speech. A Detailed Commentary on Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva,Shambala Publications,ISBN 978-1-59030-439-6
Śāntideva, Cecil Bendall and W. H. D. Rouse (trans)(1922).Śikshā-samuccaya: a compendium of Buddhist doctrine,compiled by Śāntideva chiefly from earlier Mahāyāna Sūtras. London: Murray
Of the progresse of the Bodhisattva: the bodhisattvamārga in the Śikṣāsamuccaya/ Richard Mahoney (Oxford: Indica et Buddhica, 2016)ISBN 978-0-473-37538-6,978-0-473-40931-9 &c.
L. D. Barnett (trans) (1909 )."The Path of light rendered for the first time into Engl. from the Bodhicharyāvatāra of Śānti-Deva: a manual of Mahā-yāna Buddhism",New York, Dutton

External links[edit]

Śāntideva's Bodhisattva-caryāvatāraEnglish translation; Readable HTML.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Shantideva by Amod Lele
Talk about Shantideva by Stephen Batchelor
Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior, full unpublished translation of the Bodhicaryavatara by Alexander Berzin
Commentary to Bodhicaryavatara by Patrul Rinpoche (in English )
Śikṣāsamuccaya of Śāntideva: Sanskrit Buddhist text
Works by or about ShantidevaatInternet Archive
Works by ShantidevaatLibriVox(public domain audiobooks)

[Jr.2019-1] Donald S. Lopez Jr. (28 May 2019).Seeing the Sacred in Samsara: An Illustrated Guide to the Eighty-Four Mahasiddhas.Shambhala. p. 125.ISBN 978-0-8348-4212-0.

[2] Rahsid, More Harunur (2012)."Deva Dynasty".InIslam, Sirajul;Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.).Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh(Second ed.).Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.

[3] Bodhicaryāvatāra Historical Project Archived6 March 2016 at theWayback Machine

[4] Pezzali, Amalia (1968),Śāntideva Mystjique buddhiste des VII et VIIIe siècles,Florence: Vallechi Edtore

[5] Shantideva (1997),The Way of the Bodhisattva,translated by the Padmakara Translation Group, Boston l: Shambala,ISBN 1-57062-253-1

[6] Kunzang Pelden (2007),The Nectar of Manjushri's Speech. A Detailed Commentary on Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva,Shambala Publications, p. 17,ISBN 978-1-59030-439-6

[chodron-7] "Cutting Ties: The Fruits of Solitude".Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.Retrieved28 October2015.

[8] Amod Lele,"Śāntideva",Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[9] The Way of the Bodhisattva: A Translation of the Bodhicharyavatara.Translated by the Padmakara Translation Group. Shambhala Publications. 2003.ISBN 1590300572.

[10] Kunzang Palden (2007),The Nectar of Manjushri's Speech. A Detailed Commentary on Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva,Shambala Publications,ISBN 978-1-59030-439-6

[:0-11] Goodman, Charles (2016),"Śāntideva",in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.),The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(Fall 2016 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University,retrieved15 July2022

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