| Śāntideva | |
| Religion: | Buddhism |
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Shantideva (Sanskrit: Śāntideva; ; ; Mongolian: Шантидэва гэгээн; Vietnamese: Tịch Thiên) was an 8th-century CE Indian philosopher, Buddhist monk, poet, and scholar at the mahavihara of Nalanda. He was an adherent of the Mādhyamaka philosophy of Nāgārjuna.
He is also considered to be one of the 84 mahasiddhas and is known as Bhusuku Pa (布苏固巴).[1]
Two Tibetan sources of Shantideva's life are the historians Buton Rinchen Drub and Taranatha. Recent scholarship has brought to light a short Sanskrit life of Shantideva in a 14th-century Nepalese manuscript. An accessible account that follows the Butön closely can be found in Kunzang Pelden, The Nectar of Manjushri's speech.
According to one source, Shantideva was born in the Saurastra (in modern Gujarat), son of King Kalyanavarman, and went by the name Śantivarman. But Vibhūticandra's Bodhicaryāvatāratātparyapañjikā Viśeṣadyotanī, the earliest extant biography of Shantideva, details that he was born in Southern India, in the city of Sringara, and his father was a King Mañjuśrīvarman.[2] As per Vibhūticandra, Shantideva ran away from home on the advice of his mother and travelled to Bengal and then Magadha. He served in the court of a Magadhan king and after leaving, arrived in Nalanda. During his stay in Nalanda, he was given the nickname, Bhūsuku due to his practice of Samadhi.
According to Pema Chödrön, "Shantideva was not well-liked at Nalanda" due to his idleness.[3]
According to legend, Shantideva was goaded by his fellow monks into giving a talk to the entire university body while sitting on a large lion throne with the hope that on being exposed as unable to recite any scriptures, he would leave the monastery on his own accord. Shantideva easily climbed the throne and recited stanza 9.35 of the The Way of the Bodhisattva.[3] The legend continues that at this point, the bodhisattva Manjushri appeared and then suddenly disappeared together with Shantideva. Following this event, when the monks investigated his cells, they discovered his three works, the Sūtrasamuccaya, the Śikṣāsamuccaya, and the completed Bodhicaryāvatāra.
Bu Ston details several tales from Shantideva's life which detail how he converted 500 Magadhans to Buddhism. It is said that Shantideva lived alongside the non-Buddhists while they were experiencing a natural disaster which led to them suffering from starvation. As he was appointed the head of these people, Shantideva demonstrated his supernatural abilities as he managed to make a single bowl of rice suffice for all of the 500. Similar stories are found in other sources detailing how Santideva would feed hundreds of beggars.
The Śikṣāsamuccaya ("Training Anthology") is a prose work in 19 chapters. It is organized as a commentary on 27 short mnemonic verses known as the Śikṣāsamuccaya Kārikā. It consists primarily of quotations (of varying length) from sūtras, authoritative texts considered to be the word of the Buddha—generally those sūtras associated with Mahāyāna tradition, including the Samadhiraja Sutra.
Shantideva is particularly renowned as the author of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra. A variety of English translations exist, sometimes glossed as "A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life" or "Entering the Path of Enlightenment."[4] It is a long poem describing the process of enlightenment from the first thought to full buddhahood and is still studied by Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhists today.
An introduction to and commentary on the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra by the 14th Dalai Lama called A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night was printed in 1994. A commentary on the Patience chapter was provided by the Dalai Lama in Healing Anger (1997), and his commentaries on the Wisdom chapter are in Practicing Wisdom (2004). Kunzang Palden has written a commentary based on that given by Patrul Rinpoche, translated by the Padmakara Translation Group. Patrul was a wandering monk of great scholarship who dedicated his life to propagating the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra.
Following the Buddha, Śāntideva believed that our innate investment in an inherent, personal, self or essence is not only groundless but toxic. Goodman suggests that Śāntideva also touches on the problem of free will in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, 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."
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".
His basis for preferring altruism over egoism is 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?"
The Bodhisattva is the central focus for both of the texts attributed to Shantideva. Bodhicitta is the mind that is focused on attaining the status of bodhisattva. The early chapters of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra are focused on praising the virtuous qualities of bodhicitta and also on how to strengthen and maintain it.[5]
Shantideva states:
Shantideva also argued that the development of Bodhicitta was beneficial not just to those who are following the path of the Bodhisattva but also to those who are pursuing their well-being and happiness.