The Bodhicaryāvatāra — the 'Entering into the Conduct of Awakening' — was composed by Śāntideva, an 8th-century monk at Nalanda, in approximately 700 CE. Tradition records that Śāntideva delivered the text from memory to the assembled monks of Nalanda as a public teaching; legend adds that as he reached the ninth chapter, on emptiness, he began to rise into the air, his voice continuing while his body vanished into space. What survives is the text itself: ten chapters of pithy four-line verses, written in elegant Sanskrit, totaling around nine hundred and twelve stanzas.
The ten chapters trace the path of the bodhisattva from beginning to end. Chapter 1 praises the benefits of bodhicitta. Chapter 2 is the confession of negative karma. Chapter 3 is the 'taking up of bodhicitta' — the formal commitment to the bodhisattva path. Chapters 4 through 6 develop conscientiousness, mindfulness, and patience (kshanti — the practice of not allowing anger to arise even under provocation, perhaps the most quoted chapter of the text). Chapters 7 and 8 cover diligence and meditative concentration. Chapter 9 is the great chapter on prajñā — wisdom — Śāntideva's Madhyamaka treatise on emptiness. Chapter 10 is the dedication of merit, with which the entire text concludes: 'For as long as space remains, for as long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too remain to dispel the miseries of the world.'
The Bodhicaryāvatāra is read across the Mahayana world but it is in Tibet where it has reached its highest place. Atisha brought it from India in the 11th century. Tsongkhapa quoted it extensively, and it remains among the most heavily taught texts in the modern Tibetan curriculum. Patrul Rinpoche, the great 19th-century Nyingma master, taught the sixth chapter to nomads on the high grasslands of Kham.
The Padmakara Translation Group's 2006 edition (Shambhala) is the standard English translation. Stephen Batchelor's 1979 'A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life' (Library of Tibetan Works and Archives) is widely used. Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton's 1995 translation (Oxford World's Classics) renders the original Sanskrit verses with scholarly precision.
