Abstract
Abstract śāntideva (c. seventh/eighth century) taught at Nālandā, the Buddhist university near present-day Patna, India, which, with 10,000 students and an eleven-story library, was for centuries one of the world’s principal institutions of higher learning. The Bodhicaryāvatāra (Introduction to the practice of the Bodhisattva) is said to have first been presented as a teaching by śāntideva to his fellow monks. It is a study of the cultivation of bodhicitta, the awakened—or awakening—mind. The Bodhicaryā vatāra functions as a guidebook to the bodhisattva path, the path to liberation from emotional and cognitive defilements that is motivated by great compassion (mahā karu ā), the altruistic aspiration to liberate all sentient beings from suffering, and facilitated by the perfection of wisdom (prajñāpā ramitā).
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