2021/05/17

입보리행론(Bodhicaryāvatāra)에 사용된 산스끄리뜨 운율 연구

http://doi.org/10.32761/kjip.2019..56.003 인도철학 제56집(2019.8),71～113쪽

입보리행론(Bodhicaryāvatāra)에 사용된 산스끄리뜨 운율 연구

남승호*1)

Ⅰ 서론. Ⅱ 불교 텍스트의 산스끄리뜨 운율. Ⅲ 입보리행론의 산스끄리뜨 운율. Ⅳ 운율의 다른 효용성. Ⅴ 결론.

요약문 [주요어: 샨띠데바, 불교 텍스트, 구전 전통, 운율의 종류, 대승불교 입문서]

샨띠데바가 지은 입보리행론은 8세기에 인도에서 저술된 이후 인도뿐

아니라 티벳, 중국 등 대승불교권에 걸쳐 널리 전파되어 유행하였고, 오늘 날에도 서구와 유럽의 많은 언어로 번역된 후 보급 되어 연구되고 있다. 그 이유는 이 책이 대승불교 철학의 핵심을 담은 입문서로서의 역할을 충실히 수행하였기 때문이다. 또한 게송을 지을 때 쓰인 산스끄리뜨 운율이 텍스트 의 메시지를 담는 그릇으로서의 역할을 수행하면서 샨띠데바의 진리에 대 한 철학적 통찰과 진리에 이르는 실천 수행법을 전달하는 매개체의 역할을 훌륭히 수행하고 있기 때문이다. 산스끄리뜨 운율이 주는 리듬감과 간결성 은 어려운 경전들을 외워나가고 그 의미를 음미하고 이해해 나가는 데에 아주 효과적인 장치가 된다. 또한 간결하기 때문에 반복적으로 소리를 내어 암기하기에도 아주 좋다.

기록 문자가 발달하지 않았던 시대에 운율학의 발전 또한 필연적이었고, 이것을 배움으로 해서 학생들은 텍스트의 철학적인 면 외에 운율을 적용해 나가는 수학적인 면과 또한 운율의 리듬이 불러일으키는 정서적인 면도 동 시에 접할 수 있게 되는 것이다.

운율의 지식은 필사본의 교정본을 만들 경우, 글자가 지워져서 잘 보이 지 않거나, 또는 여러가지 판본들 중에서 다른 글자가 있을 때, 적합한 글 자를 결정할 때도 유용하게 사용할 수 있다.

* 동국대학교 강사. namsingha@gmail.com

I. 서론

샨띠데바의 입보리행론은 8세기에 산스끄리뜨로 저술된 불교

문헌으로서 저술 당시는 물론이고 현대의 독자들도 선호하는 대 표적인 텍스트 중 하나이다. 이 문헌이 성립 당시부터 인기를 누 렸다는 것은 티벳 대장경에 텍스트와 주석서를 합해 10여개 이상 이 전해진다는 점에서1) 잘 드러난다. 또한 한글, 중국어, 힌디, 네 와리와 같은 동양권의 언어뿐만 아니라 영어, 덴마크, 네델란드, 독일, 스페인어로 번역되었다는 점에서2) 이 문헌은 시대와 지역 을 넘어 현대까지 그 영향력을 지니고 있다는 것을 의미할 것이

다. 아울러 달라이 라마가 이 문헌을 중요시하고 또 지속적으로 강의했던 것 역시 이 문헌의 가치를 높이는데 일조했을 것이다.

입보리행론이 유행하게 된 이유의 하나는 저자의 다른 저서 인 대승집보살학론과 함께 대승불교 입문서의 역할을 충실히 하였기 때문이라고 생각된다.3) 이와 동시에 기록 문자가 발달하 지 않았던 당시 인도에서 구전 전통을 강하게 지켜오던 인도 문학 의 전통에 따라 다양한 운율을 채택하여 청중들에게 공감을 일으 킨 것이라 할 수 있다. 산스끄리뜨 운율들은 문자를 사용하지 않 은 채 텍스트의 내용을 오랫동안 전달하고 보존하고자 하는 노력 의 일환으로 발달 되었는데, 입보리행론도 그런 전통에 따라 여 러가지 운율을 사용하여 저술을 했다. 본 논문에서는 산스끄리뜨

1) 영인 북경판 서장대장경 총목록 No.5227-No.5282.

2) Gomez(2006.9) p. 264.

3) ŚS(V) p. ix. 입보리행론 5장 105게송에 대승집보살학론을 반드시 몇 번이 고 보아야 한다고 언급되어 있다. BCA p. 79.

운율이 텍스트의 내용을 담는 그릇으로서 중요한 역할을 했고, 청 중들에게 정서적 감흥을 불러 일으켜 시대가 지남에 따라 지속적 으로 전승될 수 있도록 한 것에 중점을 두어, 불교 문헌의 하나인 입보리행론에 사용된 산스끄리뜨 운율에 대한 분석을 시도하였

다.

1. 샨띠데바(Śāntideva; 寂天)

입보리행론의 저자인 샨띠데바에 관해서는 알려진 바가 거의 없고 단편적인 것들이 주로 티벳 문헌을 통해 알려져 있다. 인도 의 대승 논사를 언급했던 중국 승려 의정(義淨)의 저서에 샨띠데 바를 언급하지 않았으므로 샨띠데뱌는, 의정이 인도를 떠난

685C.E. 이후가 생존 시기의 상한선이 될 것이다.4) 한편, 입보리행론을 티벳어로 번역한 예셰데(Ye shes sde)는 티데쏭짼(Khri lde srong brtsan; 815-838 C.E.)5)의 재세기 이전에

번역에 착수했다고 전해지므로 815-838 C.E가 생존 시기의 하한 선이 될 것이다.6) 그러므로 샨띠데바는 7세기 후반에서 8세기 초 사이에 생존 했다고 추정되어 보통 8세기 사람으로 볼 수 있을 것 이다. 샨띠데바는 사우라쉬뜨라(Saurāṣṭra) 지역에서 태어났다고 한 다.7) 그는 현재 인도의 비하르(Bihar)지역에 있던 불교대학인 날 란다 대학과 관계를 갖고 있고, 그의 학식은 아주 뛰어난 것으로

4) Brassard, Francis(2000) p. 16.

5) ŚS(B) p. V 에서는 재위기간이 816-838 C.E.으로 되어 있다. 6) 폴 드미에빌(2011) p. 290.

7) ŚSV(1960) p. viii. 이 지역은 현재의 구자라트 지역으로 추정된다.

보인다. 그 이유 중의 하나는 그의 또다른 저서인 대승집보살학 론에서 100권이 넘는 경전을 인용하고 있으며, 그 인용은 아주 정확한 것으로 판명되었기 때문이다.8)

전설에 따르면 그는 문수보살로 부터 비전을 받은 후 날란다 대 학으로 가서 출가를 하고 공부를 했다.9) 날란다 대학에 가서 자야 데바(Jayadeva)로 부터 그의 조용한 성품으로 인해 샨띠데바라는 이름을 받았다고 한다.10) 그는 문수보살로 부터 가르침을 받으며 성취를 이루었으나 동료 출가자들로 부터는 먹고, 자고, 싸기만 하는 게으른 승려로 비추어 졌다. 그리고 어느날 샨띠데바를 모욕 하려던 동료 출가자들에 의해 높은 단상위로 불려나와 강의를 하 게 되었는데, 이때 설법을 했던 것이 입보리행론 이라고 한다. 전설에는 전 텍스트를 즉흥적으로 읊었다고 하며, 9장 지혜품을 설법 할 때 그의 몸은 하늘로 사라졌으며, 저술의 나머지 부분은 목소리로만 설해졌다고 한다.11)

위의 모든 사실을 우리가 다 믿을 필요는 없으나 두 가지 사실 을 유추해 볼 수 있다. 우선 그는 높은 학식에도 불구하고 동료 승 려들에게는 지극히 평범한 또는 그 이하의 인물로 보일 정도로 겸 손했다는 것이다. 이것은 입보리행론에서 가르치는 대승 수행의 가장 기본 자세로서 그의 삶에서 겸손을 실천했다는 것을 보여 준

다. 또 한가지는 즉흥적으로 텍스트를 읊을 경우 자신의 지식을 과시하기 보다는 전달하고자 하는 내용이 청중들에게 잘 전달될 필요가 있었을 것이고, 전달 수단으로서 산스끄리뜨 운율의 필요 성이 대두되게 된다. 이미 대승불교의 기본을 공부하는 동료 승려 들 앞에서 핵심 내용을 운율이라는 감동적이고도 극적인 장치를

8) ŚSV(1960) pp. vii-viii.

9) Matics, Marion L(1971) pp. 27-31.

10) Brassard, Francis(2000) p. 16.

11) Crosby, Kate & Skilton, Andrew(1995) pp. ix-x.

통해 전달함으로써 같은 내용이라도 더 큰 공감을 불러 일으킬 수 있게 되는 것이다.

2. 입보리행론(Bodhicaryāvatāra) 문헌 연구 개요

입보리행론은 8세기에 샨띠데바가 지은 900여 개의 산스끄리 뜨 게송으로 된 불교 문헌이다. 내용은 ‘보리심’을 중심개념으로 하여, 보살이 되기 위한 대승의 중요 수행법인 육바라밀다 수행을 설명하고 궁극적으로는 보리심을 개발하여 보살이 되는데 있다. 이것은 대승불교의 가장 기본적인 내용이자 수행법이면서도 핵심 내용 중의 하나이기도 하다. 대승불교의 입문서로서 적합했던 입 보리행론은 담마빠다와 반야심경 다음으로 자주 번역된 경 전이라고 한다.12) 전부 10장으로 이루어진 이 책의 목차는 다음과 같다.

1) 보리심을 찬탄

2) 삼보에의 귀의와 참회

3) 보리심에 대한 맹세 (보시도 설해짐)

4) 이 맹세에 따라 노력하는 길

5) 정지(正知)를 수호할 것을 교시 (계율도 설해짐)

6) 인욕

7) 정진

8) 선정

9) 지혜

10) 제불제보살을 찬탄

12) Gomez(2006.9) pp. 262-263.

제 1장을 보면 1-3게송 에서는 부처님에 대한 예경과 저술 목적 을 얘기하고 나머지에 걸쳐서는 보리심의 종류와 보리심을 간직 하게 될 경우 얻는 공덕과 보리심을 찬탄하고 있다. 그리고 나머 지 장을 본다면 대승의 수행법인 6 바라밀다를 설하고 있음을 알 수 있다. 즉 입보리행론의 내용은 대승에 입문한 학생들이나 청 중들을 위해 ‘보리심’과 이것을 얻기 위한 수행법으로서의 육바라 밀다 수행을 통해 궁극적으로 보살의 길로 들어서는 것을 가르치 고 있다. 원본은 산스끄리뜨로서 이것을 이해할 만한 청중은 결국 산스끄리뜨를 알고 이에 바탕한 대승 불교를 공부하고자 하는 계 층이었거나 날란다 대학의 학생들 이었을 것이다.

입보리행론에 대한 의미있는 연구의 시작은 러시안인 미나예 프(Minayef)가 3개의 산스끄리뜨 사본을 편집해서 발표한 것이

다.13) 그후 뿌생(Louis de la Vallée Poussin)이 2개의 사본을 더 참고해서 로마자로 발표했고, 계속해서 9장까지만 주석이 있는 프 나즈냐까라마띠(Prajñākaramati)의 주석서의 데바나가리 본을 캘 커타의 아시아틱 소사이어티에서 발행했다.14) 이후 위의 연구를 바탕으로 바이디야(P.L.Vaidya)가 프나즈냐까라마띠의 주석서를 포함한 데바나가리 본을 마지막 10장까지 포함하여 캘커타 아시 아틱 소사이어티에서 불교 산스끄리뜨 시리즈 12번으로 발행했

다.15)

뿌생은 쁘라즈냐까라마띠의 제10장에 대한 주석서가 없다는 이 유로 입보리행론의 10장은 샨띠데바의 작품인지 매우 의심스럽 다는 의견을 피력했다. 하지만 이에 대해 바이디야는 반대 의견을 피력하는데, 그 이유로서 첫째, 위에 언급된 5개의 사본이 제 10

13) Russian Orental Journal Zapiski, IV, 1889.

14) Louis De La Vallée Poussin(ed.), Prajñakaramati's Commentary to the Bodhicaryāvatāra of Śāntideva, Bibliotheca Indica, Collection of Oriental Work. Asiatic Society of Bengal New Series. No.983, Calcutta, 1902.

15) BCA.

장을 포함하고 있고, 둘째, 마지막 장인 10장의 내용이 대승집보 살학론의 마지막 장인 19장과 유사하다는 것이다.16) 이런 이유로 바이디야는 10장 또한 샨띠데바의 저술로 간주한다.

입보리행론의 산스끄리뜨 제명인 Bodhicaryāvatāra는 티벳으 로 보급될 때 Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra(입보살행론)로 알려져 유포 되었고 티벳제명들도 이를 바탕으로 번역되었다. 북경판 서장대 장경에는 11개의 관련된 저술이 다음과 같이 실려있다. [번호: 제 목; 저자; 번역자 순]17)

1) 5227: Byaṅ-chub-sems-dpa'i syod-pa-la 'jug-pa; Śāntideva; Sarvajñādeva & dPal-brtsegs.

2) 5273: Byaṅ-chub-kyi spyod-pa-la 'jug-pa'i dka'-'grel; Prajñākaramati; Sumatikīrta (Sumatikīrti) & Dharma grags.

3) 5274: Byaṅ-chub-kyi spyod-pa-la 'jug-pa'i rnam-par bśad-pa'i dka' 'grel; Unknown.

4) 5275: Byaṅ-chub-kyi spyod-pa-la 'jug-pa'i legs par sbyar-ba; kalyāṇadeva; Śrīkumāra & dGe-ba'i blo-gros.

5) 5276: Byaṅ-chub-kyi spyod-pa-la 'jug-pa'i rtogs-par dka'-ba'i gnas gtan-la dbab-pa shes-bya-ba'i gshuṅ; Kriṣṇa-pa; Kriṣṇa-pa & Chos-kyi śes-rab

6) 5277: Byaṅ-chub-kyi spyod-pa-la 'jug-pa'i rnam-par bśad-pa'i dka' 'grel; Vairocanarakṣita; Unknown.

7) 5278: Śes-rab le'u'i dka' 'grel; Unknown; Mi-mñam khol-po & Blo-ldan śes-rab.

8) 5279: Byaṅ-chub-kyi spyod-pa-la 'jug-pa'i rnam-par bśad-pa'i; Unknown; Unknown.

9) 5280: Byaṅ-chub-kyi spyod-pa-la 'jug-pa'i don sum-cu-rtsa-drug bsdus-pa; Gser-gliṅg-gi bla-ma Chos-skyoṅ (Dharmapāla)

16) ŚS(V) p. VIII.

17) Saito(1997) pp. 79-80.

10) 5281: Byaṅ-chub-kyi spyod-pa-la 'jug-pa'i don bsus-pa; Gser-gliṅg-gi bla-ma Chos-skyoṅ (Dharmapāla).

11) 5282: Byaṅ-chub-kyi spyod-pa-la 'jug-pa'i dgoṅs-paḥi ḥgrel-pa khyad-par gsal-byed ces-bya-ba; Vibhūticandra.

Ⅱ. 불교 텍스트의 산스끄리뜨 운율

인도에서 전통적으로 베다 경전을 배우기 위한 6가지 학문, 즉 베당가(Vedāṅga)18)가 있는데 그 중의 하나가 운율학이라 할 수 있는 찬다스(Chandas) 또는 브릿따(vṛtta)이다. 찬다스의 다양한 운율은 일반적으로 모음의 길이와 게송의 음절수에 의해서 그 이 름이 결정되고 또 그 종류는 원칙상 1000여 개가 넘지만 빈번한 것은 30-50개 정도이다. 이 운율학의 전통은 인도의 힌두 경전뿐 만 아니라 불교 경전의 저술에도 전승되어 그 전통을 이어왔고, 많은 불교 경전들은 특정한 한 개의 운율만을 사용해서 저술 하거 나 또는 다양한 운율들을 사용하여 저술되었다. 샨띠데바는 입보 리행론의 내용을 쉽게 전달하기 위해서, 인도에서 텍스트를 저술 할 때 쓰는 전통적인 운율을 도입하여 리듬감을 살리면서 정서적 인 호소력과 함께 내용을 전달하고자 했던 것으로 파악된다. 이 장에서는 운율의 개요와 함께 운율의 관점에서 어떻게 불교 텍스 트들이 저술되었는가를 서술하고자 한다.

18) Vedāṅga는 Veda 와 aṅga가 합친 말로서 베다(Veda) 경전의 가지, 부분이라 는 뜻으로 베다를 공부하기 위한 부속 학문을 말한다.

1. 운율에 관하여

베당가는 산스끄리뜨로 된 베다 경전들을 학습하기 이전에 배

우거나 아니면 베다 경전의 학습과 더불어 공부해 왔다. 이 여섯 가지의 학문들은 음운학(Śikṣā), 문법학(Vyākaraṇa), 어원학

(Nirukta), 운율학(Chandas), 제례학(Kalpa), 천문학(Jyotiṣa) 등이 다. 처음 세 개의 학문은 언어와 관련이 있는데, 인도인들이 구전 전통을 잘 유지하기 위해서 언어에 얼마나 많은 공을 들였는지를 알 수 있다. 운율학은 베다에서 시작된 힌두 경전을 저술 할 때만 이 아니라 불교 경전과 인도의 다른 많은 철학 유파의 텍스트를 저술 할 때도 지속적인 영향을 끼쳐 현재까지 이어져 왔다.

대승불교에서는 아슈바고샤(Aśvaghoṣa, 馬鳴, A.D. 80년-160년)

가 1세기에 부처님의 생애를 지어 인도 고전 문학의 선구자로 유명하고 또한 문법학에도 능통했다고 전해진다. 아슈바고샤의  부처님의 생애는 15개 정도의 각각 다른 운율을 사용되었으며, 각각의 운율이 주는 리듬감과 산스끄리뜨 음이 조화를 이루며 청 중들에게 전달되어 정서적인 감동을 일으키게 한다. 물론 부처님 의 생애를 묘사한 내용이 중요하지만 제대로 성립된 문자가 없던 2000년 전 인도에서 이를 보급 시키고 보존 하는 데에는 운율을 사용하는 것이 가장 적절한 방법이었던 것이다.

이 장에서 다룰 입보리행론의 원전도 산스끄리뜨로 저술되었 다. 산스끄리뜨로 저술된 텍스트들은 그 특성상 처음에는 구전되 어 왔고, 이후로는 문자가 발달하면서 차츰 필사본의 형태로 보전 되어왔다. 이런 구전전통은 게송에 특정한 운율들을 사용하여 리 듬감과 정서적 호소력을 주면서 저술되었다. 이러한 운율들의 리 듬은 모음의 길이와 음절의 수로 결정된다. 예를 들어 아누쉬뚭 (Anuṣṭubh) 운율은 인도에서 가장 빈번하게 쓰이는 운율로서 8음 절 4행으로 되어 있다.19) 많은 수의 불교 문헌들은 아누쉬뚭 운율 과 다양한 운율들을 가미하여 저작되었음을 알 수 있다. 본고에서 다룰 입보리행론 안에서도 아누쉬뚭 운율이 50% 이상을 차지하 고 있다고 할 수 있을 정도로 아누쉬뚭 운율은 인도에서 가장 빈 번하게 사용되어 온 것이다.

불교 초기경전들도 많은 수가 아누쉬뚭 운율로 쓰여 왔는데, 그

이유는 배우는 입장에서 간결하고 암기하기가 쉽기 때문이다. 그 러나 대승 불교의 산스끄리뜨 문헌들을 보면 대체적으로 11음절 의 운율과 8음절의 아누쉬뚭 운율을 주로 사용하고 여기에 12,

13, 14, 15, 17, , 21 음절의 운율들을 가미해서 사용한다.

불교 텍스트에서 많이 쓰이는 11음절의 4행으로 된 운율로서

인드라바즈라(indravajra), 우뻰드라바즈라(upendravajra) 등이 있 는데, 모음의 장음과 단음의 배열이 달라지기 때문에 이름도 다르 고 리듬감도 달라진다. 그리고 또 다른 11음절의 우빠자띠 (upajāti)는 인드라바즈라와 우뻰드라바즈라를 섞어서 만든 운율 이다.

이렇듯 다양한 음절수와 모음의 장음과 단음의 다양한 배열은 리듬감을 주어 되풀이하여 읽기 쉽고, 암송하기가 쉬우며 감흥을 불러 일으킨다.

2. 운율의 관점에서 본 텍스트의 저술 방법

불교 텍스트라고 하면, 일반적으로 석가모니 부처님의 사상이나

이에 대한 주석서 또는 논서들을 통한 철학적 면을 연상하게 한 다. 이런 철학적인 고뇌의 과정은 어떻게 우리 인생에 적용이 되 어 삶에서 부딪히는 많은 어려운 문제점들을 해결해야 하는 가에 초점을 맞추어 왔다. 이에 비해 산스끄리뜨 운율학은 인도인들이 이런 철학적 문제가 담겨있는 텍스트를 어떻게 대하면서 읽어가 는가 또는 저술하는가와 연관이 있다고 할 수 있다.

예를 들어 용수(Nāgārjuna)의 중론송(Mūlamadhyama-

kakārikā)은 8음절로 된 아누쉬뚭 운율로만 지어졌고, 법화경은 산문과 운율을 함께 사용하여 저술하였다. 그러나 부처님의 생애

(Buddhacarita), 대승장엄경론(Mahāyānasūtrālaṅkāraḥ), 입 보리행론 등과 같이 다수의 문헌들은 여러 운율들을 함께 사용하 여 저술되었다.

운율학의 관점에서 보면 산스끄리뜨 텍스트는 한 줄이 너무 길

어서도 안되는데,20) 이것은 구전 전통으로 내려온 텍스트를 암송 해야 하는 것과 직결되어 있어서 1행이 보통 8자 또는 11자 정도 가 되는 운율이 많이 사용되었다. 물론 이 이외에도 6자, 12자, 13 자, 14자, 15자, 16자, 17자, 19자 또는 21자 가 되는 것도 종종 쓰 이지만 8자 또는 11자, 또는 12자의 운율이 가장 많이 사용된다.

만약 아주 길어지거나 짧은 운율로 표현할 수 없다면 산문으로

저술하거나 산문과 운율을 섞어서 저술할 수가 있다. 운율로 저술 할 때 표현하고자 하는 의미들은 보통 4행 안에서 의미가 완료된 다. 간혹 좀 더 많은 의미를 내포하고 싶을 때는 다음의 게송과 연

20) 구전 전승의 인도 텍스트 들은 간결성을 아주 중요시 하는데, 그 대표적인 예가 빠니니(pāṇini)가 저술한 문법책인 아쉬따디야이(Aṣṭadhyāyī) 이다.

계해서 서술하지만 1차 의미는 대부분 한 개의 게송 4행에서 마무 리된다. 이렇듯 산스끄리뜨 텍스트들은 운율의 관점에서 볼 때 몇 가지

로 나누어 볼 수 있다.

1) 산문으로만 저술된 텍스트 우선 특정 운율이 없이 산문으로 지어진 것이 있는데, 대승문화

권에서 많이 독송하는 반야심경 약본이 대표적이다.

【예】 āryāvalokiteśvarabodhisattvo gambhīrāyāṁ prajñāpāramitāyāṁ caryāṁ caramāṇo vyavalokayati sma| pañca skandhāḥ, tāṁśca svabhāvaśūnyān paśyati sma|| ) …

2) 산문과 운율을 섞어서 저술된 것

법화경(Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtram)의 경우는 산문과 운율 들을 섞어서 쓰여진 것이다. 법화경 제 1장의 구성은 처음에는 설명조의 산문이 나오고, 1 게송부터 56 게송 까지는 운율로 되어 있다. 그 다음은 다시 산문이 나온 후에 57게송부터 다시 운율을 사용하여 마지막 100게송까지는 운율로 되어 있다.

<산문>

evaṁ mayā śrutam| ekasmin samaye bhagavān rājagṛhe viharati sma … atha khalu maitreyo bodhisattvo mahāsattvo mañjuśriyaṁ kumārabhūtamābhirgāthābhiradhyabhāṣata-

<운율>

kiṁ kāraṇaṁ mañjuśirī iyaṁ hi raśmiḥ pramuktā naranāyakena| prabhāsayantī bhramukāntarātu ūrṇāya kośādiyamekaraśmiḥ ||1.1||

…중략…

pṛccheti maitreyu jinasya putra spṛhenti te naramaruyakṣarākṣasāḥ| catvārimā parṣa udīkṣamāṇā mañjusvaraḥ kiṁ nviha vyākariṣyati ||1.56||

<산문>

atha khalu mañjuśrīḥ kumārabhūto maitreyaṁ bodhisattvaṁ mahāsattvaṁ taṁ ca sarvāvantaṁ bodhisattvagaṇamāmantrayate sma … atha khalu mañjuśrīḥ kumārabhūta etamevārthaṁ bhūyasyā mātrayā pradarśayamānastasyāṁ velāyāmimā gāthā abhāṣata-

<운율>

atītamadhvānamanusmarāmi acintiye aparimitasmi kalpe | yadā jino āsi prajāna uttamaścandrasya sūryasya pradīpa nāma ||1.57||

…중략…

yeṣāṁ ca saṁdehagatīha kācid ye saṁśayā yā vicikitsa kācit| vyapaneṣyate tā vidurātmajānāṁ ye bodhisattvā iha bodhiprasthitāḥ ||1.100||22)

이 예는 현재에 사용되고 있는 법화경이라는 불교 텍스트가

운율과 산문으로 혼합되어 사용된 것을 보여주는 한 예이다.23)

22) SDP pp. 120.

23) 법화경이 어떻게 형성되었는가 하는 연구는 또 다른 영역의 논의가 될 것 이다.

3. 다양한 운율을 함께 사용하여 저술 된 텍스트

부처님의 생애, 대승장엄경론, 입보리행론 등과 같이 많 은 수의 불교 텍스트 들은 산문이 없이 다양한 운율들을 함께 사 용하여 저술되었다.

1) 부처님의 생애에 사용된 운율의 예 붓다고샤가 저술한 것으로 12음과 13음절이 교차하는 뿌쉬삐따 그라(puṣipitāgrā), 12음절의 방샤스타(Vaṁśastha) 등 15개 정도 의 다양한 운율을 사용하여 저술되었는데, 이 들 중에서 자주 사 용된 것으로 4행 모두 11음절을 갖는 인드라바즈라가 있다.

【예】

tasyendrakalpasya babhūva patnī dīptyā narendrasya samaprabhāvā| padmeva lakṣmīḥ pṛthivīva dhīrā māyeti nāmnānupameva māyā ||2|| 1.2.24)

2) 대승 장엄경론에 사용된 운율 이 경전은 대체로 11자의 운율을 빈번하게 사용하며 13음절의 맛따마유라(mattmayūra), 17음절의 시카리니(śikhariṇī), 19음절 의 샤르둘라위끄리디따(Śārdūlavikrīḍita)25) 등 긴 운율을 자주 가 미하여 사용하고 있다.

대승장엄경론의 1장 1게송은 19음절의 샤르둘라위끄리디따

24) BCT p. 1.

25) 19음절의 샤르둘라위끄리디따 보다 긴 음절로서 21음절의 스락다라

(Sragdharā)가 있는데, 입보리행론의 10장의 11게송에 사용되었다.

운율로 작성되어 시작하고 있다.

【예】

arthajño'rthavibhāvanāṁ prakurute vācā padaiścāmalairduḥkhasyottaraṇāya duḥkhitajane kāruṇyatastanmayaḥ| dharmasyottamayānadeśitavidheḥ sattveṣu tadgāmiṣu śliṣṭāmarthagatiṁ niruttaragatāṁ pañcātmikāṁ darśayan||1.1||26)

이상과 같이 2개의 주요 불교 경전에서 사용되는 몇 가지의 운

율들을 소개하였고, 다음에서는 입보리행론에 쓰여진 운율들에 대해서 기술한다.

Ⅲ. 입보리행론의 산스끄리뜨 운율

1. 입보리행론에 사용된 운율의 종류

이 장에서는 8세기경에 샨띠데바가 저술한 입보리행론에 나 타난 철학적 내용과 사유를 어떤 산스끄리뜨 운율에 실어서 전달 하고자 하고자 하는 가를 보여 주고자 한다. 그리하여 구전 전통 의 특성이 강한 산스끄리뜨 텍스트가 어떤 운율과 함께 잘 보존되 어 이 운율이 텍스트의 보급에 어떻게 기여했는지를 보여주고자 한다. 운율의 가지수는 확정되어 있는 것은 아니지만 여러 저작을 통

해 소개된 운율은 현재까지 약 1000여 가지가 되지만 보통

26) MSA p. 1.

180-200개 정도의 운율들이 저술들을 통해 쉽게 접할 수 있다. 이 중 불교 문헌에서 자주 등장하는 운율의 수는 20여개가 있는데, 이 중 입보리행론에 사용된 14개의 운율을 제외하고 불교 경전 에 자주 등장하는 운율은 뿌쉬삐따그라, 방샤스타(Vaṁśastha), 루 찌라, 쁘라하르시니, 시카리니, 아리야, 맛따마유라, 샬리니 등이 다.

다음 도표는 입보리행론에 사용된 14개의 운율의 종류와 운

율이 사용된 각 장의 번호를 나열한 것이다.27)

번 호 운율의 이름 음절수와 휴지부 장 번호

1 쉬슈릴라(Śiśulīlā) 1,3행-11 (6+5)28)

2,4행-12 (7+5) I.1-3,8-12,34, VIII.4, X.15

2 비요기니(Viyoginī) 1,3행-10 (6+4)

2,4행-11 (7+4) I.4,35

3 인드라바즈라

(Indravajrā) 1129) (5+6) I.5,7, II.3,5,15,16, V.122, X.9

4 우빠자띠(Upajāti) 11 (5+6) I.6,13,14,36, II.1,2.4,6-14,

IV.45,48, VI.120, VI.123-127, VIII.87,91,134, X-7,8,

5 아누쉬뚭(Anuṣṭubh) 8 I.15-31, III.1-33, IV.1-44,

V. 1-109, VI.1-119,

VI. 128-134,

VII. 1-43,46-58,60-75,

VIII. 1-3,5-78,80-85,88-90,92

-133,135-186, IX.1-168,

X.1-6,16-58

6 아빠라왁뜨라 1,3행-11 I.32-33

27) 이 14개 운율의 순서는 입보리행론에 등장하는 순서대로 나열한 것이다. 모든 게송은 4행으로 저술 되어 있는데, 예를 들어 1번 쉬슈릴라(Śiśulīla)의 경우는 1과 3행에 11음절이 사용되었고, 2와 4행은 12음절이 사용된 것이다. 인드라바즈라의 경우는 4행에 걸쳐서 모두 11음절이 사용되었다.

28) 휴지부는 게송을 읊을 때 잠시 숨을 멈추거나 고르는 지점을 말한다. 1행과

(Aparavaktra) 2,4행-12

7 우뻰드라바즈라

(Upendravajrā) 11 (5+6) II.3, VI.121,

8 샬리니(Ṣālinī) 11 (4+7) IV.46,

9 샤르둘라위끄리디따

(Śārdūlavikrīḍita) 19 (12+7) IV.47

10 꼬낄라까(Kokilaka) 17 (7+10) VII.44-45

11 바산따띨라까

(Vasantatilakā) 14 (8+6) VII.59, VIII.86

12 도다까(Dodhaka) 11 (6+5) VIII.79

13 말리니(Mālinī) 14 (8+7) X.10,12

14 스락다라(Sragdharā) 21 (7+7+7) X.11,13-14

2. 입보리행론의 14종류의 운율 분석

입보리행론 전체에 사용된 운율수는 총 14개이고, 브릿따 운

율30)인데, 이에 대해서 자세히 알아보겠다.

1) 쉬슈릴라(Śiśulīlā) - 11음절과 12음절이 교차된 운율

이 운율은 입보리행론의 1장에서는 귀경게인 1-3 게송과

3행의 경우는 6음절 후에 휴지부를 갖고 그 후 다시 5번째 음절 즉 11음절의 마지막에서 다시 휴지부를 가질 수 있다. 2와 4행은 7음절 후에 휴지부를 가 지고 다시 그 후 5번째 음절 즉 12음절의 마지막에서 휴지부를 가진다.

29) 1게의 게송은 4행으로 되어있고, 4행 모두에 모음이 11개가 들어간 11음절로 되어 있음을 뜻한다.

30) 모음의 장음과 단음을 갯수를 바탕으로 게송의 음절수를 헤아리고, 아누쉬뚭 을 제외하고는 가나를 적용해서 운율을 정하는 범주이다. 이에는 동일운율, 교차운율, 이질운율 등 3가지가 있다. 찰스 필립 브라운(2013) p. 167

8-12게송 그리고 34게송에도 사용되었다. 또한 VII.4와 X.15 에도 사용되었다. 1행과 3행은 11음절로 이루어졌고, 2행과 4행은 12음 절로 이루어져 있다. 이렇게도 다른 음절수를 가진 행이 서로 교 차되어 사용 되었으므로 교차운율이라고도 한다.

【예】 aum namo buddhāya 부처님께 예경합니다.

sugatān sasutān sadharmakāyān praṇipatyādarato ’khilāñśca vandyān | sugatātmajasaṁvarāvatāraṁ kathayiṣyāmi yathāgamaṁ samāsāt ||1.1|| na hi kiñcidapūrvamatra vācyaṃ na ca saṅgrathanakauśalaṃ mamāsti | ataeva na me parārthacintā svamano vāsayituṃ kṛtaṃ mayedaṃ ||1.2|| mama tāvadanena yāti vṛddhiṃ kuśalaṃ bhāvayituṃ prasādavegaḥ | atha matsamadhātureva paśyed aparo ’pyenamato ’pi sārthako ’yaṃ ||1.3||31)

(가나)32)

sa(∪∪⏤) sa(∪∪⏤) ja(∪⏤∪) ga(⏤) ga(⏤) 1, 3행 sa(∪∪⏤) bha(⏤∪∪) ra(⏤∪⏤) ya(∪⏤⏤) 2, 4행 (휴지부) 1행과 3행은 6+5, 2행과 4행은 7+5

31) BCA pp. 1-4.

32) 가나(gaṇa) 라고 하는 뜻은 그룹 또는 한 덩어리 라는 뜻으로서, 모음의 배열 을 처음부터 세 개씩 한 묶음으로 해서 이름을 붙인것을 말한다. 예를 들어 짧은 모음(∪) 2개가 연속해서 오고 장음 1개를 한 묶음으로 한 경우는 ‘사’ 가나가 되어 sa(∪∪⏤) 로 표시하고, 이런 가나는 8개가 있으며 이 가나의 다른 조합이 1개의 운율을 만드는 것이다. ∪는 단모음, ⏤ 는 장모음을 뜻한 다.

번역:

부처님, 보살과 함께 계신 분, 법신을 지니신 분과 예경 받으실 모든 분께 정례하오며, 보살의 율의의 전승에 대하여 경에 의거하여 간략하게 말하겠습니다. 1.1 이전에 없었던 것을 여기에 말한 것은 없습니다. 뛰어난 글 솜씨 역시 나에게 있지 않으니 그래서 다른 이를 ‘위한다’는 생각 또한 저에게 없습니다. 자신의 마음에 바른 습을 들이기 위해 이를 짓습니다. 1.2 이 글을 씀으로 해서 저의 글 솜씨의 경쟁력과 명료함의 힘이 증대될 것입니다. 저와 선연이 같은 다른 이들도

만일 이 글을 보게 된다면 이 글의 목적은 성취 될 것입니다.1.3

위의 3게송의 모음의 배열은 모든 행에 걸쳐서 모두 쉬슈릴라

운율의 가나와 정확하게 일치한다. 쉬슈릴라의 뜻은 ‘아이들의 놀 이 또는 유희’ 라는 뜻으로 아이들의 천진난만한 상태를 연상시킨 다. 샨띠데바는 부처님께 경배 하고나서 남을 위해서가 아니라 자 신의 마음에 바른 습을 들이기 위해서 이 책을 저술한다는 겸허한 목적을 말하면서 쉬슈릴라 운율을 사용하여 시작하고 있다.

2) 비요기니 (Viyoginī) - 10음절과 11음절이 교차된 운율 이 운율은 입보리행론 전체에 걸쳐 1장의 4게송과 35게송에

만 사용되었다.

【예】 kṣaṇasaṁpadiyaṁ sudurlabhā pratilabdhā puruṣārthasādhanī | yadi nātra vicintyate hitaṁ punarapyeṣa samāgamaḥ kutaḥ ||1.4||33) atha yasya manaḥ prasādameti

prasavettasya tato ’dhikaṃ phalaṃ | mahatā hi balena pāpakam jinaputtreṣu śubhaṃ tvayatnataḥ ||1.35||34)

(가나)

sa(∪∪⏤) sa(∪∪⏤) ja(∪⏤∪) ga(⏤) 1, 3행 sa(∪∪⏤) bha(⏤∪∪) ra(⏤∪⏤) la(∪) ga(⏤) 2, 4행

(휴지부) 1과 3행 - 6+4, 2와 4행 - 7+4

번역:

이 존재의 순간은 얻기가 어렵지만 일단 얻기만 한다면 인간의 목적은 성취된 것이니 만약 여기에서 이 유익함을 생각하지 않는다면 언제 다시 이같은 순간이 오겠습니까? 1.4. 만약 어떤 이가 이러한 일에 큰 신심을 일으킨다면 그 과보는 그보다 훨씬 많이 늘어 가리니 그런 보살에게는 큰 일이 닥치더라도 죄악은 생기지 않고 선업만 저절로 늘어갑니다. 1.35.35)

이 운율은 쉬슈릴라 보다는 1음절씩 줄어들었기 때문에 쉬슈릴

라 보다 좀 더 빠르고 박진감이 더해진다.

3) 인드라바즈라 (Indravajrā) - 11음절 인드라바즈라의 운율은 11 음절로서 가나는 ta(⏤ ⏤∪), ta(⏤ ⏤), ja(∪⏤∪), ga(⏤), ga(⏤)로 이루어 지는데 이러한 형태의 모 음 배열이 4행에 걸쳐서 반복된다.

1장에서는 5게송과 7게송에 사용되었다. 그 외에 2, 5, 10장에 도 사용되었다.

33) BCA p. 4.

34) 19.

35) p. 20.

【예】

rātrau yathā meghaghanāndhakāre vidyutkṣaṇaṁ darśayati prakāśaṁ | buddhānubhāvena tathā kadācil lokasya puṇyeṣu matiḥ kṣaṇaṁ syāt ||1.5||36) kalpānanalpān pravicintayadbhirdṛṣṭaṃ munīndrairhitametadeva | yataḥ sukhenaiva sukhaṃ pravṛddham utplāvayatyapramitāñjanaughān ||1.7||37)

(가나) ta(⏤⏤∪) ta(⏤⏤∪) ja(∪⏤∪) ga(⏤) ga(⏤)

(휴지부) 5+6

번역:

마치 구름 낀 칠흑 같이 어두운 밤 순간 번개의 섬광이 모든 것을 드러내듯 이처럼 한때 부처님의 위신력으로 이 세상의 복과 지혜는 잠시 생겨납니다. 1.5 무량한 세월동안 깊은 사유를 행하신 모든 성인들께서 이 보리심 만이 유익함을 보시고 이것으로 한량없는 중생에게

아주 쉽게 안락이 증가하여 넘치도록 하셨습니다. 1.7.38)

인드라바즈라의 뜻은 인드라의 번개로서 인드라 신이 들고 있 는 무기인 번개라는 뜻인데, 5게송의 내용에 이 운율의 의미가 사 용되고 있다. 즉 칠흑같은 어두운 밤길을 가고 있을 때 인드라의 번개가 쳐서 길을 보여주듯이 미혹한 인간에게도 가끔씩 부처님 의 가호가 내린다는 것이다.

36) BCA p. 5. 37) 6.

38) pp. 14-15.

4) 우빠자띠 (upajāti) - 11음절로 된 게송

우뻰드라바즈라와 인드라바즈라를 섞어서 사용한 운율 또는 다 른 2개의 운율을 섞어서 사용한 운율도 우빠자띠라고 한다. 이 운 율은 1장에서는 6, 13, 14, 36 게송에 각각 사용되었고, 그 외에 많은 곳에서 사용되었다.

【예】 tasmācchubhaṁ durbalameva nityaṁ balaṁ tu pāpasya mahatsughoraṁ | tajjīyate ’nyena śubhena kena saṁbodhicittaṁ yadi nāma na syāt ||1.6||39)

(가나)

1행 ta(⏤⏤∪) ta(⏤⏤∪) ja(∪⏤∪) ga(⏤) ga(⏤) 인드라바즈라

2행 ja(∪⏤∪) ta(⏤⏤∪) ja(∪⏤∪) ga(⏤) ga(⏤) 우뻰드라바즈라

3행 ta(⏤⏤∪) ta(⏤⏤∪) ja(∪⏤∪) ga(⏤) la(∪) 인드라바즈라

4행 ta(⏤⏤∪) ta(⏤⏤∪) ja(∪⏤∪) ga(⏤) ga(⏤) 인드라바즈라

(휴지부) 5+6 번역:

이처럼 선의 힘은 항상 약하고 강한 악업의 힘은 좀처럼 사라지지 않습니다.

그러니 완전한 보리심이 아닌

그 어떤 선으로도 악을 조복 받을 수는 없습니다. 1.6.40)

인드라바즈라와 우뻰드라바즈라를 혼용할 때는 게송의 특정한

행에 특정한 운율이 와야 한다는 등의 규칙이 없이 혼용되어 사용 해도 우빠자띠가 된다.

39) 6.

40) p. 15.

5) 아누쉬뚭- 8음절로 된 4행의 게송 인도에서 힌두와 불교 문헌 모두에서 가장 많이 쓰는 운율이다. 4행이 모두 8음절로 되어 있어서 내용을 따라 외우거나 그냥 소리 를 따라 외우기에도 좋다.

일단 8 음절이면 아누쉬뚭이라고 해도 좋지만 여기에는 대 원칙 이 있다. 8음절로서 이 원칙을 지키는 것을 전부 아누쉬뚭 운율이 라고 해도 좋다. 다음의 게송은 아누쉬뚭 게송의 대 원칙을 정의 한 것이고, 게송 자체도 이 원칙에 맞추어서 지어진 것이다.41)

śloke ṣaṣṭhaṁ guru jñeyaṁ sarvatra laghu pañcamam | dvicatuṣpādayoḥ hrasvaṁ saptamaṁ dīrgham anyayoḥ ||10||42)

위 게송을 번역해 보면 다음과 같다.

“게송에서 모든 행의 6 번째 음절은 장음 이어야 하고, 다섯 번째 음절은 단음이어야 한다. 2행과 4행의 7번째 음절은 단음이어야 하고, 다른 [1행과 3행]의 7번째 음절은 장음 이다.”

아누쉬뚭의 정의를 도표화 하면 아래와 같은데, ‘∪’ 는 단음을 나타내고, ‘⏤’ 는 단음을 나타낸다. 그리고 ‘∪’ 는 단음이 될 수 도 있고, 장음이 될 수 도 있는 것을 표시한다.

∪ ∪ ∪ ∪ ∪ ⏤ ⏤ ∪

41) 아누쉬뚭에 관해서는 박영길(2015) pp. 423-469를 참조할 것.

42) ŚRB p. 5.

∪ ∪ ∪ ∪ ∪ ⏤ ∪ ∪

예로 든 위 게송에서 1-4행의 모음의 장음과 단음의 배열을 분

석해 보면 다음과 같다.

(모음의 배열)

⏤ ⏤ ⏤ ⏤ ∪ ∪ ⏤ ⏤

⏤ ⏤ ∪ ∪ ∪ ⏤ ∪ ⏤

∪ ∪ ⏤ ⏤ ∪ ⏤ ⏤ ⏤

⏤ ∪ ⏤ ⏤ ∪ ⏤ ∪ ⏤

즉 8개의 모음을 포함한 8음절의 단어가 4행에 걸쳐 사용되었 고 모음과 장음의 배열이 원칙을 잘 따르고 있음으로 아누쉬뚭 운 율이라고 본다.43)

이 운율은 입보리행론 1장의 중간 부분인 15게송에서부터 31 게송까지 연속적으로 가장 많이 사용되었고 나머지 2장에서 10장 에 걸쳐 압도적으로 많이 사용된 운율이다. 이 운율은 가나를 적 용하지 않고 모음의 장단의 배열이 원칙에 맞는가 만을 보아 판단 한다.

【예】

gantukāmasya gantuś ca yathā bhedaḥ pratīyate | tathā bhedo ’nayor jñeyo yathāsaṁkhyena paṇḍitaiḥ ||1.16||44)

(모음의 배열)

43) 8음절 중에서도 아누쉬뚭에 속하지 않고 가나를 적용한 것으로 쁘라마니까

(pramāṇikā) 등이 있는데 자(ja, ∪―∪), 라(ra, ―∪―), 라(la, ∪), 가(ga, ―) 의 배열로 저술되었고, 많이 사용되지는 않는다.

44) BCA p. 12.

⏤∪⏤⏤∪⏤⏤∪ ∪⏤⏤⏤∪⏤∪⏤

⏤∪⏤⏤∪⏤⏤⏤

⏤⏤⏤⏤∪⏤∪⏤

이 모음의 배열은 위에서 설명한 아누쉬뚭 운율에 원칙에 잘 부

합하고 있다.

아누쉬뚭 운율은 특히 본격적인 가르침의 내용이 나올 때 사용 된다. 3, 5, 9 장은 아예 아누쉬뚭 운율만으로 지어졌다. 불교 텍 스트 중에서도 용수의 중론45)과 세친의 유십이십론 유십삼 십송46) 등은 오직 8음절의 아누쉬뚭 운율 하나로 저술 된 텍스트 들이다.

6) 아빠라왁뜨라 (Aparavaktra) - 11음절과 12음절이 교차된 운율 이 운율은 입보리행론 전체에서 1장의 32게송과 33게송에서

만 사용되었다.

【예】

katipayajanasatradāyakaḥ

kuśalakṛdityabhipūjyate janaiḥ | kṣaṇamaśanakamātradānataḥ saparibhavaṁ divasārdhayāpanāt ||1.32|| kimu niravadhisattvasaṅkhyayā niravadhikālamanuprayacchataḥ | gaganajanaparikṣayākṣayaṃ

45) 중론의 예) anirodhamanutpādam anucchedamaśāśvatam| anekārthamanānārtham anāgamamanirgamam ||1.1|| yaḥ pratītyasamutpādaṁ prapañcopaśamaṁ śivam| deśayāmāsa saṁbuddhastaṁ vande vadatāṁ varam ||1.2|| MMS p. 4.

46) 유십삼십송의 예) ātmadharmopacāro hi vividho yaḥ pravartate| vijñānapariṇāme'sau pariṇāmaḥ sa ca tridhā ||1.1|| TVK pp. 27-29.

sakalamanorathasaṃprapūraṇaṃ ||1.33||47)

(가나) na(∪∪∪) na(∪∪∪) ra(⏤∪⏤) la(∪) ga(⏤) 1, 3 행 na(∪∪∪) ja(∪⏤∪) ja(∪⏤∪) ra(⏤∪⏤) 2, 4 행

번역:

몇 안 되는 중생에게 계속해서 음식을 베풀고 어쩌다 한 번 보시를 하고 천시하는 [마음으로] 반나절을 배부르게 할지라도 세상 사람들은 그가 덕행을 행했다며 칭송합니다. 1.32.

한량없는 유정에게 긴 세월 동안 여래의 위없는 안락을 [얻도록] 마음의 한량없는 소원을 채워주고, 항상 베푸는 보시에 무슨 칭송의 말이 필요하겠습니까? 1.33.48)

위 두 게송에서 일반인들의 보시의 덕행과 여래의 중생에 대한

보시를 대비 시키며 교훈을 주면서 말하는 느낌을 주는 운율인 아 빠라왁뜨라를 사용하고 있다. 비록 같은 11음절 계열의 운율이라 도 모음의 배열에 따라서 분위기가 상당히 달라지는 것을 알 수 있다.

7) 우뻰드라바즈라(Upendravajrā) - 11음절

【예】

mahīdharā ratnamayāstathānye vanapradeśāś ca vivekaramyāḥ | latāḥ sapuṣpābharaṇojjvalāś ca drumāś ca ye satphalanamraśākhāḥ ||2.3||49)

47) BCA p. 17. 48) 샨티데바(2004) p. 19.

49) BCA p. 22.

(가나) ja(∪⏤∪), ta(⏤⏤∪), ja(∪⏤∪), ga(⏤), ga(⏤)

(휴지부) 5+6

번역:

보석으로 장식된 수미산과 같이 숲으로 에워싼 고요하고 아름다운 대지와 늘 푸르며 꽃으로 장식된

가지마다 미묘한 열매가 달린 나무들. 2.3.50)

이 내용은 불, 보살님들께 아름다운 숲을 관상하며 공양을 올리

는 장면으로서 11음절 계통이지만 우뻰드라바즈라를 사용하여 그 아름다움을 더하고 있다.

8) 샬리니(Ṣālinī) - 11음절

입보리행론 전체에서 4장의 46게송 한군데에서만 사용되었

다.

【예】

kvāsau yāyānmanaḥstho nirastaḥ sthitvā yasminmadvadhārthaṃ yateta |

nodyogo me kevalaṃ mandabuddheḥ

kleśāḥ prajñādṛṣṭisādhyā varākāḥ ||4.46||51)

(가나) ma (⏤⏤⏤) ta(⏤⏤∪) ta(⏤⏤∪) ga(⏤) ga(⏤)

(휴지부) 4+7

번역:

번뇌! 번뇌! 지혜의 눈에는 사라져 버리는 너는 내 마음에서 사라져 어디로 가는가?

50) 샨티데바(2004) p. 22.

51) p. 47.

너는 어디에 있다가 나를 해치러 다시 오는가? 의기소침한 나에겐 정진할 힘마저 다해 버렸구나! 4.46.52)

번뇌가 어디 있는가를 묻고 있는 이 구절에서 단 한 번 샬리니

를 사용하고 있다.

9) 샤르둘라위끄리디따(Śārdūlavikrīḍita) - 19음절 입보리행론 전체에서 4장 47에만 사용되었다.

【예】

na kleśā viṣayeṣu nendriyagaṇe nāpyantarāle sthitā nāto ’nyatra kuhasthitāḥ punarime mathnanti kṛtsnaṃ jagat | māyaiveyamato vimuñca hṛdayatrāsaṃ bhajasvodyamaṃ prajñārthaṃ kimakāṇḍa eva narakeṣvātmānamābādhase||4.47||53)

(가나) ma(⏤⏤⏤), sa(∪∪⏤), ja(∪⏤∪), sa(∪∪⏤), ta(⏤⏤∪), ta

(⏤⏤∪), ga(⏤) (휴지부) 12+7

번역:

번뇌란 놈은 대상도 없고 감각에도 없으며 그 중간이나, 그 어디에

도 없으며 이외에 다른 곳에도 없으며 어디에 머물면서 중생에게 해를 끼치는

가?

이것은 하나의 허깨비이니 두려움을 버리고 지혜를 위해 정진할 뿐

인데 쓸데없이 나는 왜 여러 지옥에서 그렇게 많은 해를 당해야 하는가?

4.47.54)

52) 샨티데바(2004) p. 49. 53) BCA p. 47.

54) 49.

앞의 4장 46에서 번뇌가 어디 있는지에 대한 대답격으로 19음

절의 긴 운율로서 설명 하고 있다.

10) 꼬낄라까 (Kokilaka) - 17 음절

7장은 전체적으로 8음절인 아누쉬뚭 운율인데, 44와 45 게송에 17음절의 긴 꼬낄라까 운율을 사용하면서 분위기에 변화를 주고 있다.

【예】

vipulasugandhiśītalasaroruhagarbhagatā madhurajinasvarāśanakṛtopacitadyutayaḥ | munikarabodhitāmbujavinirgatasadvapuṣaḥ sugatasutā bhavanti sugatasya puraḥ kuśalaiḥ ||7.44|| yamapuruṣāpanītasakalacchavirārtaravo hutavahatāpavidrutakatāmraniṣiktatanuḥ | jvaladasiśaktighātaśataśātitamāṃsadalaḥ patati sutaptalohadharaṇīṣvaśubhairbahuśaḥ ||7.45||55)

(가나) na(∪∪∪), ja(∪⏤∪), bha(⏤∪∪), ja(∪⏤∪), ja(∪⏤∪), la (∪), ga(⏤) (휴지부) 7+10

번역:

[악행의 과보로] 넓고 크고 행기롭고 시원한 연꽃의 태에 머물고 위엄은 부처님의 감미로운 말씀을 먹고 자란다. 원만한 형상은 부처님의 빛으로 연꽃이 열리며 태어나네.

부처님 앞에 여래의 보살[상속자]로 선업을 지으며 사는 것이다.

7.44.

[악행의 과보로] 저승사자가 껍질을 남김없이 벗겨서 아주 처참해지고 아주 뜨거운 불에 녹은 타오르는 구리 쇳물을 몸에 붓고

55) pp. 126-127.

타오르는 칼과 창으로 찌르고, 살은 백 갈래로 찢어지고 뜨겁게 달궈진 철판 위로 떨어지는 많은 악업에 시달린다. 7.45.56)

내용 또한 44게송에서는 선행의 과보를, 45게송에서는 악행의

과보를 말하면서 대비 시키고 있다.

11) 바산따띨라까 (Vasantatilakā) - 14 음절

7장은 거의 아누쉬뚭으로 사용되었으나, 위의 44와 45의 게송외 에 59 게송에서 14음절인 바산따띨라까를 사용해서 변화를 주고 있으며 5개의 운율이 사용된 8장에서도 86게송에 이 운율을 사용 했다.

【예】

dhanyaiḥ śaśāṅkakaracandanaśītaleṣu ramyeṣu harmyavipuleṣu śilātaleṣu | niḥśabdasaumyavanamārutavījyamānaiḥ caṃkramyate parahitāya vicintyate ca ||8.86||57)

(가나) ta(⏤⏤∪), bha(⏤∪∪), ja(∪⏤∪), ja(∪⏤∪), ga(⏤), ga(⏤)

(휴지부) 8+6

번역:

전단향의 향기가 스민 달빛 아래 시원함을 즐기며 넓고 평평한 돌집에서 기쁨을 누리리라. 고요한 숲속에서 산들바람은 불어오니

이웃의 이익을 생각하며 이리저리 거닐며 8.86.58)

12) 도다까(dodhaka) 11음절

56) 샨티데바(2004) p. 103. 57) BCA p. 154.

58) 124.

8장에 사용된 5개의 다른 운율중 하나가 이 운율이고 이 곳 한 군데서만 사용되었다.

【예】

arjanarakṣaṇanāśaviṣādair arthamanarthamanantamavaihi | vyagratayā dhanasaktamatīnāṃ nāvasaro bhavaduḥkhavimukteḥ ||8.79||59)

(가나) bha (⏤∪∪), bha(⏤∪∪), bha(⏤∪∪), ga(⏤), ga(⏤ )

(휴지부) 6+5

번역:

[재산을] 모으고 지키지만 결국에는 없어지는 고통으로 항상 재물이란 무한한 재암임을 알아야 한다. 재물을 탐하는 어리석은 사람에게

윤회의 고통에서 벗어날 기회는 없다. 8.79.60)

13) 말리니(mālinī) 15음절

10장은 7개의 다양한 운율로 되어있는데 그 중 15음절의 말리 니가 10 게송과 12게송에서만 사용되었다.

【예】

patitasakalamāṁsāḥ kundavarṇāsthidehā dahanasamajalāyāṁ vaitaraṇyāṁ nimagnāḥ | mama kuśalabalena prāptadivyātmabhāvāḥ saha suravanitābhiḥ santu mandākinīsthāḥ ||10.10||61)

(가나) na(∪∪∪), na(∪∪∪), ma(⏤⏤⏤), ya(∪⏤⏤), ya(∪⏤⏤)

59) BCA II p. 153.

60) 샨티데바(2004) p. 123.

61) p. 284.

(휴지부) 8+7

번역:

불이 타오르는 급류에 빠진 사람들 살은 무너지고 하얀 뼈는 하얀 연꽃의 색깔이로다. 나의 공덕의 힘으로 천상의 몸을 받아서 하늘 신들과 함께 사뿐히 내려앉아 머물기를! 10.1062)

14) 스락다라(Sragdharā) - 21음절

입보리행론의 10장 11게송과 13, 14게송에서만 이 긴 운율을 사용하고 있다.

【예】 trastāḥ paśyantvakasmādiha yamapuruṣāḥ kākagṛdhrāśca

ghorāḥ

dhvāntaṃ dhvastaṃ samantāt sukharatijananī kasya saumyā

prabheyam |

ityūrdhvaṃ prekṣamāṇā gaganatalagataṃ vajrapāṇiṃ jvalantaṃ dṛṣṭvā prāmodyavegād vyapagataduritā yāṃtu tenaiva sārdham ||BCA 10.11||

(가나) ma(⏤⏤⏤), ra(⏤∪⏤), bha(⏤∪∪), na(∪∪∪), ya(∪⏤⏤), ya(∪⏤⏤), ya(∪⏤⏤) (휴지부) 7+7+7

번역: 어찌하여 여기는 염라의 옥졸과 무서운 까마귀, 독수리를 두려워하

는가?

어둠을 몰아내고 우리에게 기쁨과 안락을 주는 거룩한 힘은 누구의

62) 175.

것인가? 위를 올려다보니 허공 중에 빛나는 금강수 보살이 계심을 보고 솟아나는 환희심의 힘으로 죄악에서 벗어나 그와 함께 머물게 하소

서! 10.11.63)

아마도 한 게송에서 저자가 전할려고 하는 것을 모두 다 설하기

위해 이 긴 운율을 채택한 듯하다.

이상과 같이 유명한 불교 텍스트의 하나인 입보리행론에 사

용된 14개의 운율에 대해서 분석을 시도해 보았다.

IV. 운율의 다른 효용성

요즘은 활자화된 된 책으로 글을 읽어 나가는데, 이렇게 활자화 된 글이 마치 오류가 없는 확정된 것으로 무의식적으로 받아 들이 는 경향이 강하다. 산스끄리뜨 저술들은 약 3,500 여년 전 또는 그 이전부터 글자가 없이 소리로 전해 내려왔다. 그리고 2000년 전의 브라흐미 문자를 필두로 해서 A.D. 5세기 이후부터 문자가 발달되 기 시작하여 구전 전승이 싯다마뜨리까, 샤라다, 데와나가리, 벵갈 리, 까나다 등의 문자로 손으로 기록되기 시작했다. 이렇게 기록 된 문자들은 세월과 함께 부분적으로 지워지거나, 아니면 완전히 없어지기도 한다. 또한 구전 전통이 다를 경우 판본마다 약간의 차이를 보이기도 한다. 이렇게 다른 여러 판본들을 가지고 교정 연구를 할 경우 운율 지식을 사용하여 적합한 글자를 확정 하는데 사용할 수 있다.

63) 샨티데바(2004) p. 175.

1. 판본이 다른 경우

【예 1】 atha yasya manaḥ prasādameti prasavettasya tato ’dhikaṁ phalaṁ | mahatā hi balena pāpakarma jinaputtreṣu śubhaṁ tvayatnataḥ ||1.35||

【예 2】 atha yasya manaḥ prasādameti prasavettasya tato ’dhikaṁ phalaṁ｜ mahatā hi balena pāpakam jinaputtreṣu śubhaṁ tvayatnataḥ ||1.35||64)

위 두 게송은 입보리행론 1장 35 게송으로서 세 번째 행의 마 지막 단어가 각각 pāpakarma 와 pāpakam 으로서 다르다. 이 경 우 어떤 글자를 최종적으로 확정해야 할지의 의문이 생긴다. 이 게송은 비요기니 운율의 변형으로서 가나가 1행과 3행은 sa, sa, ja, ga la가 되어야 하고 2행과 4행은 sa, bha, ra, la, ga 가 되어 야 한다. 앞의 35.a 게송의 세 번째 행은 1행과 같은 패턴인 sa sa ja ga la 가나를 유지 하면서 11 음절을 유지하고 있다.

하지만 35.b 게송은 1행은 sa, sa, ja, ga la 패턴을 잘 유지하고

있지만 세 번째 에서는 sa, sa, ja, ga로 패턴이 깨어지고 음절수 도 10 음절로 줄어든다. 이럴 경우 같은 운율과 음절수을 유지하 는 35.a 의 pāpakarma를 최종적인 글자로 확정 할 수 있고, 실제 인도인들은 이런 식으로 텍스트의 오류를 기본적으로 점검한다.

64) BCA p. 19.

2. 비사르가와 아누스와라가 지워진 경우

필사본을 연구할 때 어떤 글자가 뚜렷이 보이지 않을 경우가 있 다. 인도 글자의 데와나가리로 표현되는 글자 위에 표현되는 아누 스와라 (･ 또는 ṁ) 와 오른쪽 옆에 두 점으로 표현되는 비사르가 (: 또는 ḥ) 라고 불리는 것이 있다. 이것이 있으면 장음이 되고 없 으면 단음이 되기 때문에 세월과 함께 이 점이 사라지고 없는 경 우는 운율의 지식을 사용하여 점이 있었는지의 여부를 판단할 수 있다. 점이 없는 글자일지라도 부분적으로 지워졌을 경우에는 게 송의 전 후 행의 음절수와 어떤 운율 이었는지를 판단하여 원래 글자 모습을 추측할 수 있다.

또한 여러가지의 필사본을 대조할 때 글자가 다른 경우, 운율의

배열에 맞추어 합당한 글자를 먼저 선택할 수 있고, 최소한 글자 가 장음 인지 단음인지를 판단하여 이에 맞는 글자를 선택하는 데 도 쓰일 수 있다.

【예 1】 na hi kiṁcidapūrvamatravācyaṁ na ca saṁgrathanakauśalaṁ mamāsti | ataeva na me parārthacintā

svamano vāsayituṁ kṛtaṁ mamedaṁ ||1.2||65)

【예 2】 na hi kiṁcidapūrvamatravācya na ca saṁgrathanakauśalaṁ mamāsti | ataeva na me parārthacintā svamano vāsayituṁ kṛtaṁ mamedaṁ ||1.2||

65) BCA p. 3.

위 게송의 운율은 11음절과 12 음절이 교차된 쉬슈릴라이고 가

나는 1행과 3행은 sa, ja ga ga를, 2행과 4행은 sa, bha, ra ya를

유지해야 한다. 한데 예 1)의 첫행의 마지막은 일정 패턴을 유지하 지만 예 2)의 첫행의 마지막은 아누스와라(ṁ)가 사라지고 없다. 이것은 로마자로 ṁ 로 표현되지만 발음을 할 때는 모음을 비음화 하는 것으로서 야(ya) 발음을 비음화 시키는 것이다. 인도 데와나 가리 글자로 표현 할 때는 ya 라는 글자위에 한 점() 으로 표시될 뿐이기 때문에 세월이 지나면서 어떤 접촉이나 온도차에 의해 점 차로 없어지는 경우가 많다. 즉 예2)의 첫 번째 게송은 그 패턴이 sa, ja, ga, ga 되지 못하고 sa, ja, ga, la가 된다. 이럴 경우 쉬슈

릴라 운율의 패턴을 적용하면 장음인 la 가 되어야 하기 때문에 한 점인 아누스와라가 있었다고 단정할 수 있다.66) 당연히 세월과 온전한 글자도 때로는 희미해 그룹지고 부식 되거나 사라지기도 하는데, 이 경우 문법을 적용해서 따져 보기도 해야 하지만 운율 을 적용 시키는 예를 들어 보았다.

V. 결론

샨띠데바가 지은 입보리행론은 8세기에 인도에서 저술된 이

후 인도뿐 아니라 티벳, 중국등 대승불교권에 걸쳐 널리 전파되어 유행 하였고, 오늘날에도 서구와 유럽의 많은 언어로 번역된 후 보급 되어 연구되고 있다. 그 이유는 이 책이 그의 또다른 저서인 대승집보살학론과 함께 대승불교 철학의 핵심을 담은 입문서로

66) 아누스와라가 있으면 장음이 된다.

서의 역할을 충실히 수행하였기 때문이다. 내용은 보리심과 이것 을 깨닫기 위한 실천 방편으로서의 육바라밀다 수행을 설하고 있 는데, 이 보편적 종교적 가치가 동, 서양을 막론하고 공감을 얻었 기 때문이다.

또한 게송을 지을 때 쓰인 산스끄리뜨 운율이 텍스트의 메시지 를 담는 그릇으로서의 역할을 수행하면서 샨띠데바의 진리에 대 한 철학적 통찰과 진리에 이르는 실천 수행법을 전달하는 매개체 의 역할을 훌륭히 수행하고 있기 때문일 것이다. 샨띠데바는 그가 깨달은 세계에 대해서 청중들이 경험하게 하거나 적어도 고양되 게 하기 위해서는 내용에 따라 적절한 운율을 사용했던 것으로 판 단된다. 그 이유는 산스끄리뜨 운율이 주는 리듬감과 간결성은 어 려운 경전들을 외워나가고 그 의미를 음미하고 이해해 나가는 데 에 아주 효과적인 장치가 되고 또 간결하기 때문에 반복적으로 소 리를 내어 암기하기에도 효율적이기 때문이다.

베다 시대의 사색의 산물인 우빠니샤드 문헌들을 말할 때, 우빠

니샤드의 문자적 해석은 ‘가까이 앉는다’ 라는 것이다. 즉 스승의 가까이 앉아 스승이 전수하는 구전 전통의 게송들을 듣고, 따라하 고서 그 의미를 배운 후 되새김 하며 암송 해 나가는 것이다. 기록 문자가 발달하지 않았던 시대에 인도에서 발전된 구전 전통안에 서 운율학의 발전 또한 필연적이었고, 이것을 배움으로 해서 학생 들은 텍스트의 철학적인 면 외에 운율을 적용해 나가는 수학적인 면과 또한 운율의 리듬이 불러 일으키는 정서적인 면도 동시에 접 할 수 있게 된다.

운율의 지식은 필사본의 교정본을 만들 경우, 글자가 지워져서

잘 보이지 않거나, 또는 여러가지 판본들 중에서 다른 글자가 있 을 때, 적합한 글자를 결정할 때도 유용하게 사용할 수 있다. 본고 에서 이론적으로 운율이 다루어졌지만 실질적으로 이 운율을 배 워 낭송하다보면 만뜨라의 효과와 같이 내용에 대한 감흥을 불러 일으킴으로써 또 다른 차원에서 텍스트와 그 의미를 대할 수 있게 될 것이다.

이상과 같이 일반적으로 철학적인 측면에서 접근하던 불교 텍

스트를 운율의 관점에서 접근하여 입보리행론을 분석해 보았다. 불교 철학을 공부할 때 흔히 문, 사, 수의 관점에서 말 하는데, 운 율은 가르침을 듣고 또한 반복적인 독송이나 암송을 하는 매개체 로서의 역할을 하면서도 사색의 단계로 이끌어 주는 중요한 역활 도 해왔다. 인도에서 산스끄리뜨로 된 텍스트를 공부한다는 것은 내용과 함께 그에 따르는 운율도 함께 듣고 배우고 낭송하게 됨으 로써 자연스럽게 인도인의 문화적인 한 면을 온전하게 흡수하게 되는 과정인 것이다.

약호 및 참고 문헌

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Nirṇyasāgarākhyamudraṇyaṁtrālaya, 1950.

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박영길

2015 ｢고전 산스끄리뜨의 아누쉬뚜브(Anuṣṭubh)에 대하여: 박뜨라(Vaktra) 운율군(群)을 중심으로｣, 불교연구 제

42집, 서울: 한국불교연구원, pp. 423-469.

2018 ｢고전 산스끄리뜨의 아리야(Āryā) 운율:

라뜨나까라샨띠(Ratnākaraśanti)의

찬도라뜨나까라(Chandoratnākara)를 중심으로｣,

불교학리뷰 23, 논산: 금강대학교 불교문화연구소, pp.

91-128. 샨티데바(2004) (청전 역). 입보리행론. 서울: 하얀연꽃. 찰스 필립 브라운(2013) (박영길 역). 산스끄리뜨 시형론: 운율 및 숫자적 상징에 대한 해설, 서울: 도서출판 씨아이알. [Brown,

Charles Philip(1896). Sanskrit Prosody and Numerical

Symbols Explained. London: Trubner& ̈ Co.,]

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8세기 인도와 중국 불교도들의 돈頓/정적靜寂주의 논쟁｣,

불교학리뷰 제9집. 논산: 금강대학교 불교문화연구소, pp.

267-302. [Paul Demieville (1952). Le Concile de Lhasa. Paris: Bibliothèque de l'Institut des Hautes Études chinoises]

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Calcutta: The Asiatic Society.

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Baranasi; Bauddha Bhāratī.

Abstract

A Study of Sanskrit Meters in Bodhicaryāvatāra

Nam, Seung Ho

(Dongguk University)

Bodhicaryāvatāra of Śantideva is dated around 8 C.E. and since then it has been a very popular Mahāyāna text both in the country of origin ― India and in distant China. Once it reached Tibet it came to be accepted as a standard text deliberating on the basic tenets of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Over the years it remains a much-acclaimed work that promulgates Mahāyāna principles in a mellifluous and poetic style. A lot of research has been done on the text especially in Europe and in America.

Another reason for its enduring popularity is the author’s skillful use of diverse meters in Sanskrit. Perhaps he adopted this ornamental style to grip the attention initially of the listener and later the reader and make their first interaction with the text an unforgettable experience. The varied meters only enhance the sublime content of the book and not detract it. In the hands of this master craftsman the meters become an effective means to help the followers, monks and lay people of the mundane world, to emotionally connect with the profound truth of Bodhicitta and the 6 Paramitas. Virtues which one need to practice to attain the level of perfect Buddhahood for the sake of suffering sentient beings. In my article, the area of focus is the Chanda or Sanskrit prosody used by Śantideva.

In India, to study the Vedas one must study the 6 limbs of the Vedas called the 6 vedāṅgas as they help one to accurately understand the holy texts. One of the 6 vedāṅgas is Meter or Prosody(Chandas). Buddhist scholars, following the Sanskrit tradition also used meters(Chandas) in their works which enhanced the musical and aesthetic appeal of their compositions. I shall discuss the kinds of Meters used by Śāntideva in his text Bodhicaryāvatāra. My purpose is to establish how Sanskrit prosody or meter assisted in the oral transmission of the Bodhicaryāvatāra. To show how the Chandas add to the efficacy in transmission of the Buddhist knowledge. It will also be my attempt to show how knowledge of meter can be useful in determining the correct meaning of the words in a text when one is working with various manuscripts (pertaining to a particular text) in order to compose a critical edition of the text.

Keywords: Śāntideva, Buddhist Text, Types of Meters, Oral transmission

투고 일자: 2019년 8월 4일 심사 기간: 2019년 8월 8일~21일 게재 확정일: 2019년 8월 28일

『입보리행론』(Bodhicaryāvatāra) A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life,

『입보리행론』(Bodhicaryāvatāra)에 사용된 산스끄리뜨 운율 연구

『입보리행론』(Bodhicaryāvatāra)에 사용된 산스끄리뜨 운율 연구
A Study of Sanskrit Meters in Bodhicaryāvatāra

인도철학

약어 : KJIP

2019, vol., no.56, pp. 71-113 (43 pages)

DOI : 10.32761/kjip.2019..56.003

발행기관 : 인도철학회
연구분야 :
인문학 >
불교학
남승호 /Seungho Nam 1

1동국대학교

초록

샨띠데바가 지은 『입보리행론』은 8세기에 인도에서 저술된 이후 인도뿐 아니라 티벳, 중국 등 대승불교권에 걸쳐 널리 전파되어 유행하였고, 오늘날에도 서구와 유럽의 많은 언어로 번역된 후 보급 되어 연구되고 있다. 그 이유는 이 책이 대승불교 철학의 핵심을 담은 입문서로서의 역할을 충실히 수행하였기 때문이다. 또한 게송을 지을 때 쓰인 산스끄리뜨 운율이 텍스트의 메시지를 담는 그릇으로서의 역할을 수행하면서 샨띠데바의 진리에 대한 철학적 통찰과 진리에 이르는 실천 수행법을 전달하는 매개체의 역할을 훌륭히 수행하고 있기 때문이다. 산스끄리뜨 운율이 주는 리듬감과 간결성은 어려운 경전들을 외워나가고 그 의미를 음미하고 이해해 나가는 데에 아주 효과적인 장치가 된다. 또한 간결하기 때문에 반복적으로 소리를 내어 암기하기에도 아주 좋다. 기록 문자가 발달하지 않았던 시대에 운율학의 발전 또한 필연적이었고, 이것을 배움으로 해서 학생들은 텍스트의 철학적인 면 외에 운율을 적용해 나가는 수학적인 면과 또한 운율의 리듬이 불러일으키는 정서적인 면도 동시에 접할 수 있게 되는 것이다. 운율의 지식은 필사본의 교정본을 만들 경우, 글자가 지워져서 잘 보이지 않거나, 또는 여러가지 판본들 중에서 다른 글자가 있을 때, 적합한 글자를 결정할 때도 유용하게 사용할 수 있다.

Bodhicaryāvatāra of Śantideva is dated around 8 C.E. and since then it has been a very popular Mahāyāna text both in the country of origin ― India and in distant China. Once it reached Tibet it came to be accepted as a standard text deliberating on the basic tenets of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Over the years it remains a much-acclaimed work that promulgates Mahāyāna principles in a mellifluous and poetic style. A lot of research has been done on the text especially in Europe and in America. Another reason for its enduring popularity is the author’s skillful use of diverse meters in Sanskrit. Perhaps he adopted this ornamental style to grip the attention initially of the listener and later the reader and make their first interaction with the text an unforgettable experience. The varied meters only enhance the sublime content of the book and not detract it. In the hands of this master craftsman the meters become an effective means to help the followers, monks and lay people of the mundane world, to emotionally connect with the profound truth of Bodhicitta and the 6 Paramitas. Virtues which one need to practice to attain the level of perfect Buddhahood for the sake of suffering sentient beings. In my article, the area of focus is the Chanda or Sanskrit prosody used by Śantideva. In India, to study the Vedas one must study the 6 limbs of the Vedas called the 6 vedāṅgas as they help one to accurately understand the holy texts. One of the 6 vedāṅgas is Meter or Prosody(Chandas). Buddhist scholars, following the Sanskrit tradition also used meters(Chandas) in their works which enhanced the musical and aesthetic appeal of their compositions. I shall discuss the kinds of Meters used by Śāntideva in his text Bodhicaryāvatāra. My purpose is to establish how Sanskrit prosody or meter assisted in the oral transmission of the Bodhicaryāvatāra. To show how the Chandas add to the efficacy in transmission of the Buddhist knowledge. It will also be my attempt to show how knowledge of meter can be useful in determining the correct meaning of the words in a text when one is working with various manuscripts (pertaining to a particular text) in order to compose a critical edition of the text.

키워드

샨띠데바,
불교 텍스트,
구전 전통,
운율의 종류,
대승불교 입문서

Śāntideva, Buddhist Text, Types of Meters, Oral transmission

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入菩提行論 (A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of ...

샨티데바의 책

설명

영어에서 번역됨-Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra 또는 Bodhicaryāvatāra는 때때로 Bodhisattva의 삶의 방식에 대한 가이드로 영어로 번역되며, c. 위키백과(영어)

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Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra or Bodhicaryāvatāra (Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ་ byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa; JNP. 入菩薩行論 [1]), sometimes translated into English as A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, is a Mahāyāna Buddhist text written c. 700 AD in Sanskrit verse by Shantideva (Śāntideva), a Buddhist monk at Nālandā Monastic University in India which is also where it was composed.[1]

Contents
1Structure
2Chapter summary
3Exegetical discourse and commentary
4Commentaries and studies in English
5References
6External links

Structure[edit]

It has ten chapters dedicated to the development of bodhicitta (the mind of enlightenment) through the practice of the six perfections (Skt. Pāramitās). The text begins with a chapter describing the benefits of the wish to reach enlightenment.[2] The sixth chapter, on the perfection of patient endurance (Skt. kṣānti), strongly criticizes anger and has been the subject of recent commentaries by Robert Thurman [3] and the fourteenth Dalai Lama.[4] Tibetan scholars consider the ninth chapter, "Wisdom", to be one of the most succinct expositions of the Madhyamaka view.[5] The tenth chapter is used as one of the most popular Mahāyāna prayers.[citation needed]

Chapter summary[edit]

The benefits of bodhicitta (the wish to reach full enlightenment for others)
Purifying bad deeds
Adopting the spirit of enlightenment
Using conscientiousness
Guarding awareness
The practice of patience
The practice of joyous effort
The practice of meditative concentration
The perfection of wisdom
Dedication

Exegetical discourse and commentary[edit]

Many Tibetan scholars, such as Jamgön Ju Mipham Gyatso, have written commentaries on this text.

Commentaries and studies in English[edit]

Brassard, Francis (2000), The Concept of Bodhicitta in Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara, History of religions, State University of New York (SUNY) Press, ISBN 0-7914-4575-5
Dalai Lama, XIV; Padmakara Translation Group (1994), A Flash Lightning in the Dark of Night: Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life (1st ed.), Shambhala, ISBN 0-87773-971-4
Dalai Lama, XIV; Geshe Thupten Jinpa (trans & ed) (2004), Practicing Wisdom: The Perfection of Shantideva's Bodhisattva Way, Wisdom Publications,U.S, ISBN 0-86171-182-3
Pema Chödrön (2005), No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva, commentary on Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Boston: Shambhala, ISBN 1-59030-135-8
Geshe Yeshe Topden (2005), The Way of Awakening: A Commentary on Shantideva's Bodhicharyavatara, Wisdom Publications,U.S, ISBN 0-86171-494-6
Gyatso, Kelsang (1980), Meaningful to Behold: View, meditation and action in Mahayana Buddhism : an oral commentary to Shantideva's A guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life, Wisdom Publications, ISBN 0-86171-003-7
Khenchen Kunzang Pelden; Padmakara Translation Group (2008), The Nectar of Manjushri's Speech: A Detailed Commentary on Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva, Shambhala, ISBN 1-59030-439-X
Khenchen Kunzang Pelden; Minyak Kunzang Sonam; Padmakara Translation Group, Wisdom: Two Buddhist Commentaries on the Ninth Chapter of Shantideva's Bodhicharyravatara
Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche; Holmes, Ken (trans); Doctor, Thomas (trans) (2001), A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life of Shantideva, Kathmandu: Namo Buddha Seminar, ASIN: B000UO76C6
Schmidt-Leukel, Perry (2019), Buddha Mind - Christ Mind. A Christian Commentary on the Bodhicaryāvatāra. With a new translation by Ernst Steinkellner and Cynthia Peck-Kubaczek, Christian Commentaries on Non-Christian Sacred Texts, Peeters, ISBN 978-90-429-3848-9
Williams, Paul (1997), Altruism and Reality: Studies in the Philosophy of the Bodhicaryavatara, Routledge Curzon Critical Studies in Buddhism, Routledge Curzon, ISBN 0-7007-1031-0
Williams, Paul (1997), The Reflexive Nature of Awareness (Rang Rig): Tibetan Madhyamaka Defence, Routledge Curzon Critical Studies in Buddhism (1st ed.), Routledge Curzon, ISBN 0-7007-1030-2

References[edit]

^ Śāntideva (1998). Translator’s Note: The Bodhicaryāvatāra. Oxford University Press. p. xxviii. ISBN 978-0-19-283720-2.
^ Pema Chödrön (2005), No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva, commentary on Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Boston: Shambhala, p. xiii, ISBN 1-59030-135-8
^ F., Thurman, Robert A. (2005). Anger : the seven deadly sins. New York, N.Y.: New York Public Library. ISBN 0195169751. OCLC 55518464.
^ 1935-, Bstan-ʼdzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV (1997). Healing anger : the power of patience from a Buddhist perspective. Thupten Jinpa., Śāntideva, active 7th century. (1st ed.). Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1559390735. OCLC 36138376.
^ Pema Chödrön (2005), No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva, commentary on Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Boston: Shambhala, p. xv-xvi, ISBN 1-59030-135-8

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External links[edit]

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https://iep.utm.edu/santideva/

Śāntideva (fl. 8th c.)

Śāntideva (literally “god of peace”) was the name given to an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist philosopher-monk, known as the author of two texts, the Bodhicaryāvatāra and the Śikṣāsamuccaya. These works both express the ideal of the bodhisattva — the ideal person of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The term Mahāyāna, literally “Great Vehicle,” came into use to mean the idea of attempting to become a bodhisattva (and eventually a buddha) oneself, rather than merely following the teachings set out by Siddhārtha Gautama (considered the original Buddha). This was the earliest usage of the term mahāyāna in Sanskrit, although even by Śāntideva’s time, understandings of what becoming a bodhisattva involved had undergone many changes; the Mahāyāna had come to be understood as a separate school rather than as a vocation (see Nattier 2003; Harrison 1987).

Both of Śāntideva’s texts explore the bodhisattva ideal as an ethical one, in that they prescribe how a person should properly live, and provide reasons for living in that way. Śāntideva’s close attention to ethics makes him relatively unusual among Indian philosophers, for whom metaphysics (or theoretical philosophy more generally) was more typically the primary concern. Śāntideva’s ethical thought is widely known, cited and loved among Tibetan Buddhists, and is increasingly coming to the attention of Western thinkers. Śāntideva’s metaphysics is of interest primarily because of its close connection to his ethics.

1. History and Works

a. Writings

The name “Śāntideva” is associated above all with two extant texts: the Bodhicaryāvatāra (hereafter BCA) and the Śikṣāsamuccaya (hereafter ŚS). The Bodhicaryāvatāra (often rendered “Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life”), in its most widely known form, is a work of just over 900 verses. Tibetan legends suggest that the text was originally recited orally (see de Jong 1975), as do the text’s own literary features. Although it has been translated into Tibetan multiple times and is revered throughout Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it was originally composed and redacted in Sanskrit. Its Sanskrit is relatively close to Pānini’s official standards of grammar, with a Buddhist vocabulary. Its ten chapters lead their reader through the path to becoming a bodhisattva — which is to say a future Buddha, and therefore a being on the way to perfection, according to Mahāyāna tradition.

The Śikṣāsamuccaya (“Training Anthology”) is a longer prose work in nineteen chapters. The ŚS is organized as a commentary on twenty-seven short mnemonic verses known as the Śikṣāsamuccaya Kārikā (hereafter ŚSK). 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. Most scholars have taken the ŚS to be composed almost entirely of such quotations. However, Paul Harrison (2007) has recently claimed that a substantial portion of it is original to the redactor.

Like the BCA, the ŚS was originally composed in Sanskrit, as were the sūtras it quotes. However, while Śāntideva’s own portions are in relatively standard Sanskrit, the quotations are mostly in the heavily vernacularized language usually known as Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. It is considerably less accessible to a novice reader than the BCA, and its organization can be bewildering. Richard Mahoney (2002) has recently provided a clear account of the text’s structure, which will be discussed later in this article.

Who were these texts written for? One can infer from the texts that they are intended for an audience of men whose sexual desires are directed toward women, as the auditor’s sexual cravings are always discussed in those terms. Therefore, the use of masculine forms to refer to the implied audience is unproblematic. This auditor also understands Sanskrit, and lives in or after the seventh century CE. His knowledge of Sanskrit implies, at the least, that he is well educated, and therefore well versed in the ideas of classical Sanskritic culture. And he is not necessarily on the bodhisattva path when he begins reading or hearing the texts, but is motivated to enter that path by studying them.

The texts’ implied audience includes monks, and may also include householders (nonmonks). While monks are a significant component of the text’s implied audience (Onishi 2003), and are in some respects the ideal audience, they are not necessarily the only such audience. The principles of conduct put forth in the BCA’s fifth chapter resemble those of vinaya monastic codes, and indeed some of them have been taken directly from the prātimokṣa monastic rule books (Crosby and Skilton 1995, 32), but few of them would be impossible or absurd for a householder to follow. In the ŚS, too, Śāntideva certainly considers monasticism better and more praiseworthy than the householder life, but part of his task is to convince householding readers to pursue the monastic life. He claims that “in every birth the great bodhisattva goes forth [as a monk] . . . from the household life” (ŚS 14). But this is a process renewed in every lifetime, beginning with the household life; and Śāntideva does refer on multiple occasions to householding bodhisattvas (for example at ŚS 120 and 267). This text, then, is addressed in part to householders.

b. Life

Tibetan hagiographic histories (Bu ston, Tāranātha, Ye shes dPal ‘byor and Sum pa mKhan po) provide the most detailed accounts of Śāntideva’s life, although most contemporary historians doubt their veracity. In brief, they tell of a prince from Saurāstra (in contemporary Gujarat) who joined the great monastic university of Nālandā. His fellow monks, unaware of his wisdom, saw only a lazy man unworthy of their company. To prove his presumed lack of knowledge, they asked him to recite a Buddhist sūtra text. Śāntideva, undaunted, asked whether they would like to hear something old or something new. Asked for something new, he proceeded to recite the BCA. When he reached verse IX.34 — “When neither an entity nor a nonentity remain before thought, then thought, with no object, is pacified because it has no other destination” — he rose into the air and his body disappeared. The remainder of the text was recited by a disembodied voice. The written text of the ŚS, the voice told the audience, could be found in Śāntideva’s room, along with a text called the Sūtrasamuccaya (Pezzali 1968, 4-20). There is some debate among scholars as to the nature of the latter work, but all agree that the title does not refer to any additional surviving work of Śāntideva’s, and that the BCA and ŚS constitute his extant corpus (see Lele 2007, 17n8).

Beyond the hagiographies, most of what we know of Śāntideva comes from the ideas found in extant recensions of his texts. This article treats Śāntideva’s works together, as the works of a single author, as Indian and Tibetan Buddhist tradition has always done; similarly, it refers to the ideas found in the canonical Sanskrit recensions of the texts, not to the Tibetan or to the BCA recension found at Dunhuang. Since the article’s approach is to examine the ideas of this author, Śāntideva, it spends relatively little time on the structure of each of his two texts as separate units. For an overview of the relevant textual issues and a defense of this article’s approach to the texts, see Lele 2007, 9-31. More specifically, for a discussion of the Dunhuang recension, see Saito 1993. For discussions of the structure of the BCA, see Crosby and Skilton 1995; Saito 1993. For discussions of the structure of the ŚS, see Clayton 2006; Griffiths 1999, 133-43; Hedinger 1984; Mahoney 2002; Mrozik 2007. On both, see Pezzali 1968.

It is difficult to learn much about the texts’ historical composer, or their redactor, beyond what is found in the texts themselves. As noted, Tibetan historians recount the life story of a Śāntideva identified as the texts’ author, but it is difficult to sort fact from legend with so little corroborating evidence. There seems little reason to doubt that someone by the name of Śāntideva wrote some portion of the two texts, or that he was a monk at Nālandā. (The Tibetan historians agree on this last point, and based on what we know of Indian Buddhist history it seems a likely place for historically significant Buddhist works to have been composed.) Paul Griffiths (1999, 114-24) uses the accounts of Chinese and Tibetan visitors to reconstruct a detailed account of what life and literary culture at Nālandā might have looked like.

Beyond these points, we can say relatively little beyond the approximate date of the texts’ composition. The Tibetan translator Ye shes sde, who rendered the BCA into Tibetan, worked under the king Khri lde srong brtsan (816-838 CE), so it must have been composed before that time (Bendall 1970, v). Since the Chinese pilgrim Yijing (or I-tsing) mentions all the major Indian Mahāyāna thinkers known in India but does not mention Śāntideva, it is likely that these texts were composed, or at least became famous, after Yijing left India in 685 CE (Pezzali 1968, 38). We may therefore assign Śāntideva an approximate date of sometime in the eighth century.

c. Reception and Influence

As historical evidence on India is difficult to come by, it is relatively difficult to ascertain Śāntideva’s influence in the later Indian Buddhist philosophical tradition. Nevertheless, a significant number of later Indian texts do refer to the BCA and ŚS (Bendall 1970, viii-x), so Śāntideva’s work must have been relatively important there.

It is far easier to speak of Śāntideva’s influence in Tibet. Tibetan Buddhists revere Śāntideva and his work, especially the BCA. All the major Tibetan texts on the stages of the bodhisattva path, such as those of Tsong kha pa and sGam po pa, quote it at length (Sweet 1977, 4-5); it is a key source for the entire Tibetan literary genre of blo sbyong or lojong (“mental purification”) (Sweet 1996, 245). The present Dalai Lama cites it as the highest inspiration for his ideals and practices (Williams 1995, ix). Tibetan commentators have written many commentaries on the text over the years, several of which are now available in English translation (e.g. Gyatso 1986; Rinpoche 2002; Tobden 2005). While the ŚS was less influential overall, the tradition has not ignored it. In 1998 the present Dalai Lama gave public teachings on the ŚS, referring to it as a “key which can unlock all the teachings of the Buddha” (quoted in Clayton 2006, 2). Śāntideva’s work has played a significant role in other cultures influenced by Tibetan Buddhism, such as Mongolia (see, for example, de Rachewiltz 1996; Kanaoka 1963). A less influential translation of the BCA was also made into Chinese (Bendall 1970, xxix-xxx).

The BCA has also been widely translated, studied, and admired in the West. (See Onishi 2003 for a thesis-length discussion of the text’s Western reception.) Luís Gómez (1999, 262-3) even suggests that it is now the third most frequently translated text in all of Indian Buddhism, after the Dhammapāda and the Heart Sūtra. A recent introductory text (Cooper 1998) also treats the BCA as one of “the classic readings” in ethics, alongside such works as Plato’s Gorgias and Mill’s Utilitarianism. The BCA is an appropriate choice for a reading in Buddhist ethics, for relatively few Buddhist texts make explicit ethical arguments. This situation even leads one scholar (Keown 2005, 50) to proclaim that Buddhism “does not have normative ethics,” though he does not appear to have taken Śāntideva’s work into account in making this claim (see Lele 2007, 48-52).

2. The Progress of the Bodhisattva

The central concern of both of Śāntideva’s texts is the bodhisattva, literally “awakening-being.” A bodhisattva is a being aiming to become a buddha (literally “awakened one”); the process of the final transformation into a buddha is called bodhi, “awakening,” sometimes referred to as “enlightenment.” The title Bodhicaryâvatāra, “introduction to conduct for awakening,” is usually taken to be short for Bodhisattvacaryâvatāra — “introduction to the conduct of a bodhisattva,” or “A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life,” as one major translation (Wallace and Wallace 1997) has it. “Introduction to the conduct of a bodhisattva” is an appropriate description of the contents of the text, although “introduction to conduct for awakening” would be equally appropriate. Śāntideva also introduces the Śikṣāsamuccaya by claiming he will explain the sugatâtmajasamvārâvatāra, a similar phrase meaning “introduction to the requirements for the sons of the Sugatas” (ŚS 1). (Throughout Buddhist literature sugata, literally “gone well,” is a common term for buddhas, and Mahāyāna literature regularly refers to bodhisattvas as the buddhas’ sons.) The term “bodhisattva” occurs at least seven times in the nineteen chapters of the ŚS. This section examines the bodhisattva’s progress from being an ordinary person through to being a buddha, as this progress is discussed in Śāntideva’s texts.

To describe those who are neither bodhisattvas nor buddhas, Śāntideva most frequently uses the term “ordinary person,” prithagjana. He refers at one point to “all buddhas, bodhisattvas, solitary buddhas, noble searchers and ordinary people” (ŚS 9) — suggesting that ordinary people are the residual category of all those who do not fall into the previous categories. It is standard in Mahāyāna texts to refer to three “vehicles” (yāna) or paths, with the vehicles of the searcher (śrāvaka) and solitary buddha (pratyekabuddha) being distinguished from the Great Vehicle (mahāyāna) of the bodhisattva. It is quite rare, however, for Śāntideva to refer to searchers and solitary buddhas, and even buddhas appear relatively infrequently, so in practice the most important distinction in his texts is between bodhisattvas and ordinary people.

Śāntideva’s view of ordinary people is not flattering. The term “ordinary person” frequently occurs in his work alongside the term “fool” (bāla) — sometimes with the latter as a modifier (“foolish ordinary person,” bālaprithagjana, as at ŚS 61) and sometimes with the two terms used synonymously and interchangeably, as at ŚS 194. Ordinary people’s foolishness traps them in suffering; the way for them to escape from suffering is to enter the bodhisattva path and become a bodhisattva.

To become a bodhisattva, one must possess the awakening mind (bodhicitta). This mental transformation brings one out of the status of ordinary person and points one toward awakening. Śāntideva makes an important distinction between two kinds of the awakening mind: the mind resolved on awakening (bodhipraṇidhicitta) and the mind proceeding to awakening (bodhiprasthānacitta). The first, he tells us, can be reached quickly; it exists when the thought “I must become a buddha” arises as a vow (ŚS 8). He is not as explicit about the nature of the second, but in describing the first he notes that “the awakening mind is productive even without conduct” (ŚS 9), suggesting that conduct (caryā, bodhicaryā) may be what makes the difference between the mind resolved on awakening and the mind proceeding to awakening. (Brassard 2000 is a book-length study of the awakening mind and the BCA.)

It would appear, however, that possession of the mind resolved on awakening is sufficient to make its possessor into a bodhisattva. The BCA, recall, suggests that it is intended to be ritually recited. Its reader develops the awakening mind while reciting the third chapter sincerely — saying “Therefore I will produce the awakening mind for the welfare of the world” (BCA III.23). Two verses later, the reciter, apparently not having done anything else in the intervening time, declares: “Today I have been born into the family of the buddhas; now I am a child of the buddhas,” which is to say a bodhisattva(BCA III.25).

This is not, of course, the end of the story. Such a beginning bodhisattva has just started on the path; he has a long task ahead of him. Śāntideva does not spell out the different levels of attainment that a bodhisattva may reach, but he suggests that he agrees with the account of ten stages (bhūmi) of a bodhisattva’s achievement, as set out in the Daśabhūmika Sūtra and followed in Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakâvatāra (see Sprung 1979 for a partial translation of, and commentary on, this latter text). The ŚS quotes the Daśabhūmika six times. In this context, Śāntideva distinguishes between “one who has entered a stage” (bhūmipraviṣṭa) and a beginning (ādikarmika) bodhisattva (ŚS 11), suggesting that beginning bodhisattvas have not even entered the first of the ten stages.

Notice, however, that the BCA’s reciter does not become a bodhisattva, even a beginning one, until taking the vow in the third chapter. So Śāntideva’s audience, it would seem, is not limited to bodhisattvas — a point strengthened by the profuse praises of the awakening mind in the opening chapters of both texts. The reader who starts the text might not have generated the awakening mind, hence not have started trying to become a bodhisattva, and needs to be convinced of the importance of doing so.

The eighteenth chapter of the ŚS gives some account of the end of the path. It gives a fantastical description of the buddhas — their great beauty, virtue and power (ŚS 318-22). Shortly afterwards, it also describes the qualities of bodhisattvas in similar terms and at greater length. It is difficult to imagine how a reader who had just become a bodhisattva, taking the vow, could see himself as described by these qualities — spontaneously emitting perfumes and garlands and pearls from his body, for example (ŚS 327) — so this is likely the culmination of a long period of effort, in the last stages of which one becomes a fully realized bodhisattva. The distinctions between buddhas and fully realized bodhisattvas are not clearly spelled out; one suspects that being one of these advanced bodhisattvas is almost as good as being an actual buddha.

3. Excellence in Means

To interpret Śāntideva’s ethics in the BCA and ŚS, it is important to turn to the concept of excellence in means (upāyakauśalya). This common Mahāyāna concept is best known as a way of explaining the existence of other Buddhist traditions, as in texts like the Lotus Sūtra: the Buddha preached mainstream Buddhism as a clever way to reach people who were not ready to receive the superior teaching of the Mahāyāna. (See Pye 1978 for a book-length discussion.)

The term has a number of different senses in Buddhist tradition (see Harvey 2000, 134-40). Some Mahāyāna texts treat excellence in means as the seventh of ten perfections or virtues (pāramitā); Śāntideva does not do this, as he adheres to the conception that there are only six perfections (on which see below). For him, there are two senses in which the idea is important. The first is hermeneutical: different teachings are intended for people at different levels of ability, with the idea of ultimate truth at the very highest level (see BCA IX.2-8). For this reason the BCA is usually understood as a progressive text, leading its audience through progressively deeper levels of practice and understanding (e.g. see Crosby and Skilton 1995, 83-6). Śāntideva does not specifically use the term “excellence in means” to refer to this idea, although it is a common name for the idea in other Mahāyāna texts (Harvey 2000, 134). The second sense of the term is ethical; the idea most frequently comes up when he quotes the Upāyakauśalya Sūtra, a text which claims that bodhisattvas may break standard precepts or rules out of compassion. (The sūtra exists in Chinese and has been translated into English twice: Chang 1991, 427-68, and Tatz 1994.)

This second sense of excellence in means takes on considerable importance in contemporary discussions of Śāntideva’s ethics (e.g. Clayton 2006, 102-9) because it is under this rubric that Śāntideva comes closest to addressing the “hard cases” so beloved of contemporary moral philosophy, such as situations when one seems called on to kill in order to prevent a greater evil. While discussing excellence in means, he explains that behaviors normally forbidden, including sexual activity, can be permitted out of compassion. So too, it is to explain the importance of excellence in means that Śāntideva notes that one is permitted to kill someone about to commit a grave wrong. The idea is important to this article for similar reasons, in that it seems to be a key principle involved in what we might call Śāntideva’s casuistry — his examination of particular cases where different pieces of advice seem to collide.

For Śāntideva, a key component of excellence in means is that it is an excellence — a skill and a virtue which allows one to respond appropriately to difficult situations, if not a virtue on the official list of six perfections. There is no one formula or principle for action that Śāntideva sets out in advance (along the lines of “act to bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number” or “act only according to that maxim you can also will to be a universal law”). As we will shortly see, there are definite elements of consequentialist reasoning in Śāntideva, but more often the bodhisattva is called on to exercise judgment, once his character is already well developed: When Śāntideva says that “even the forbidden is permitted,” it is specifically “for a compassionate one who has sight of the purpose” (BCA V.84); that is, it depends on the agent’s ability to exercise discretion in the name of compassion.

This level of discretion is evinced in the numerous places in Śāntideva’s work where difficult cases are considered. When he approves of the killing of someone about to commit a grave wrong, he says only that there is “permission” (anujñāna), not that it must be done. Similarly, in the case of alcoholics, alcohol may be given; Śāntideva uses the gerundive form deya (ŚS 271), and the gerundive in -ya does not have the imperative force of the gerundive in -tavya.

Śāntideva explicitly refers to consequences in the case of giving a weapon: one may do so after the “consideration of good or bad consequences” (ŚS 271). This is still a consideration or reflection rather than a maximizing or weighing; “consideration,” vicāra, is literally “moving around (in the mind).” A weighing of some sort comes across in introducing the possibility that one might have sex out of compassion: “even then, if one should see a greater benefit (artha) to beings, one may discard the training” (ŚS 167). Some sort of consequentialist maximizing appears to be at work here. Clayton (2006, 107) suggests that such concern for consequences means that these “examples of upāya become problematic from the perspective of a virtue ethic.” However, for Śāntideva, any true “benefit” to other beings will ultimately be an increase in their virtue. Goodman (2008) argues strongly for a consequentialist interpretation of Śāntideva’s ethics, but on the understanding that it is a “perfectionist consequentialism,” in which the consequences to be maximized consist of virtue in oneself and others.

4. Good and Bad Karma

The terms “good karma” and “bad karma,” respectively, translate the Sanskrit terms puṇya and pāpa. These terms appear very frequently in Śāntideva’s work — often as justifications for acting and feeling in a certain way. They refer to a kind of ethical causality: the process by which ethically good and bad actions (respectively) have positive and negative results. These results most characteristically, but not exclusively, include better and worse rebirths. The Sanskrit terms parallel the English usage of “good and bad karma,” thought of as the way in which one’s good or bad actions come back to affect one positively or negatively in the future. This usage corresponds exactly to the meaning of the Buddhist terms puṇya and pāpa, even though those terms do not themselves involve the Sanskrit word karma or karman (which simply means “action”). There is, at any rate, no disputing the close connection between Sanskrit karma, on the one hand, and puṇya and pāpa on the other; the latter are typically referred to in Sanskrit as karmaphala, the fruits of action.

The concepts of good and bad karma are central to Śāntideva’s thought. The ŚS is typically thought to be structured around the idea, presented inŚSK 4, that one should “protect, purify and enhance” one’s person, one’s possessions and one’s good karma, though one should also be prepared to give all of these things away (Bendall 1970, xi). ŚS 356 connects each of these verbs to good and bad karma: to “protect” something is to prevent new karmically bad mental states (dharmas) related to it; to “purify” it is to reduce the existing karmically bad states related to it; and to “enhance” it is to increase the karmically good states related to it. (Mahoney 2002, 32-9 identifies the significance of these verbs with respect to the traditional Buddhist samyakprahānas or “right strivings”.) In a certain sense, one might see the ŚS as being all about good and bad karma — a sense strengthened by the long discussions of bad karma in ŚS III, IV and VIII, and of the good karma deriving from worship in ŚS XVII. In the BCA, too, the final chapter — the highest and most important, if one adheres strictly to a progressive understanding of the text — deals with the redirection (pariṇāmanā) of good karma. Dayal (1970, 189-90) goes so far as to say that Śāntideva substituted karmic redirection for metaphysical insight as the ultimate goal of the bodhisattva path. Clayton (2006, 83) and Lele (2007, 96-7) argue that Dayal’s claim is overstated, but neither dispute that good and bad karma are vitally important to Śāntideva’s work. Clayton (2006, 67) identifies three terms closely related to good karma (kuśala, śīla and puṇya) as the most central ethical concepts in the ŚS, and even as “probably the most important ethical concepts in Indian Buddhism” more generally.

The redirection of good karma (often called “transference of merit”) is a central part of Śāntideva’s understanding of karma’s workings. He urges his readers to redirect any good karma that they acquire, so that it does not merely result in a worldly form of well-being, such as a more prosperous rebirth for oneself. This redirection can sometimes be to ensure that the good karma brings one closer to awakening instead of worldly rebirths (bodhipariṇāmanā, ŚS 158); see Kajiyama 1989 for a discussion of this first form, which is often neglected in studies of karmic redirection. More frequently, though, it means the giving up of one’s good karma to others (puṇyotsarga). This is a common idea in Buddhist texts. Buddhist stories often emphasize the supernatural nature of karmic redirection. Especially, they commonly claim or imply that ghosts (pretas or petas) are incapable of receiving physical gifts. If one wishes to give them something, it must be one’s good karma(Kajiyama 1989, 7-8).

In contemporary philosophical terms, Śāntideva’s idea of karma suggests, though not conclusively, an internal connection between virtue or ethical excellence and well-being. That is, he often uses these terms in a way that suggests that virtue is well-being in many significant senses. He does this by using puṇya in ways that make it equivalent both to virtue or excellence and to well-being or flourishing. Śāntideva uses the term for good karma (puṇya) interchangeably with the terms for good conduct (śīla) and excellence (kuśala) (see Lele 2007, 79-82)(Clayton 2006, 73). Even more frequently, however, he equates it with well-being or welfare, śubha, as Clayton (2006, 48-51) notes. This equivalence suggests a sense in which, on Śāntideva’s understanding, good karma not only produces well-being, but is well-being — constitutive of a good life, at least at the level of conventional truth. There does remain some ambiguity, however, in the sense that Śāntideva’s work also suggests that well-being is the product of the result or “ripening” (vipāka) of good karma.

This ambiguity may be compared to that in Greek conceptions of eudaimonia, which also means human welfare or flourishing, but includes a strong element of excellence (aretē) as well. To the extent that good karma is equated with excellence, Śāntideva’s thought resembles that of the Stoics, who thought that excellence alone constituted well-being. To the extent that good karma is equated with the results of excellent action, however, it looks more like Aristotle’s view, where “external goods,” outside the control of the agent’s excellence or lack thereof, are intrinsic components of well-being. (See Greek Philosophy and Stoicism.) However, Śāntideva does not ever suggest, as Aristotle does, that everyone aims at well-being but not everyone knows what it is (NE 1095a).

However we interpret the relation between action and result, it would seem that for Śāntideva good karma, as a complex of virtue and well-being, effectively constitutes its own intrinsic reason for action, as eudaimonia does. That a given action or mental state is karmically good, and that it is good per se, seem to be one and the same; Śāntideva does not make claims of the form “one should refrain from an action or mental state in spite of the good karma it generates,” or “one should have an action or mental state even though it is karmically bad.” Amod Lele argues that “there are a number of cases where it would seem like Śāntideva is saying it is not good to have more good karma, but in nearly all such cases, he actually ends up saying that the apparent loss of good karma turns out to bring more good karma” (Lele 2007, 85-7, emphasis in original).

5. The Perfections

Śāntideva typically describes the bodhisattva in terms of his six “perfections” (pāramitās); e.g., ŚS 97, 187. The perfections are beneficial and valuable traits of character, similar to Aristotelian virtues or excellences. This article renders Śāntideva’s term pāramitā as the literal “perfection” rather than as “virtue” because Śāntideva does discuss other virtues — beneficial traits of character — which are not themselves considered pāramitās, such as nonattachment and esteem.

The six perfections are nearly always arranged in ascending order: giving or generosity (dāna), good conduct (śīla), patient endurance (kṣānti), heroic strength (vīrya), meditation (dhyāna) and metaphysical insight (prajñā). An observer might be tempted to apply Aristotle’s classification of the virtues here and identify the first four as “moral” virtues, the sixth (and possibly the fifth) as “intellectual.” However, one should bear in mind the significance of Aristotle’s distinction: intellectual virtues are primarily attained through teaching, moral virtues through habituation (NE 1103a). Śāntideva does not distinguish the perfections in this regard; as we will see in the section on metaphysical insight below, in many ways it too is acquired through habituation.

The perfections are sufficiently important to Śāntideva’s ethical thought that both of his texts are to some extent structured around them. The final four perfections are explicitly identified, in turn, as the topics of the BCA’s chapters VI through IX. Patient endurance and heroic strength are also identified as the topics of ŚS chapters IX and X. While the first two perfections — giving or generosity (dāna) and good conduct (śīla) — do not receive their own chapter headings, they do have an important place in Śāntideva’s ethical worldview, as we will see.

a. Giving

Śāntideva uses the term dāna to refer both to the act of giving, and to the perfection which might more idiomatically be rendered into English as generosity (dānapāramitā). He does not usually distinguish between the two. This article follows his usage and uses “giving” and “generosity” as synonyms.

Giving has relatively little role in the BCA except for its role in the redirection of good karma, mentioned above. In the ŚS, however, it takes pride of place. The first chapter of the ŚS closes by claiming that “giving alone is the bodhisattva’s awakening” (ŚS 34). Richard Mahoney (2002), undertaking a detailed study of the ŚS’s structure, has demonstrated that the entire text is effectively organized around the idea of protecting, purifying and enhancing one’s person, possessions and good karma — culminating in giving each of these three things away.

Why is giving so important to Śāntideva? For him, giving serves at least three important and distinct purposes: first, the development of nonattachment; second, the “upward” expression of esteem (śraddhā); and third, “downward” compassionate benefit to others. Each of these three, for him, is an essential component of the bodhisattva path, and giving allows one to realize each component, though in different ways.

i. Giving as Giving Up

The first reason Śāntideva offers for giving is that one should not be attached to things in the first place; one should be ready to give them away. Śāntideva sometimes uses terms, utsarga and tyāga, which have both the sense of “giving” and of “renunciation.” By giving something to another person, one both demonstrates one’s own lack of attachment to it and minimizes the risk that it will cause future attachment. As a result, one generates a great deal of good karma. Here giving is primarily “giving up”; “giving to” is a secondary function. Śāntideva expresses this rationale for giving most forcefully in a long passage excerpted here:

What is given must no longer be guarded; what is at home must be guarded. What is given is [the cause] for the reduction of craving (triṣṇā); what is at home is the increase of craving. What is given is nonattachment (aparigraha); what is at home is with attachment (saparigraha). What is given is safe; what is at home is dangerous. What is given is [the cause] for supporting the path of awakening; what is at home is [the cause] for supporting Māra [the demonic tempter]. What is given is imperishable; what is at home is perishable. From what is given [comes] happiness; having obtained what is at home, [there is] suffering. (ŚS 19)

This passage indicates a common theme in Śāntideva’s work, one more radical than some other Buddhist takes on attachment and possession. It is not merely that a bodhisattva should avoid attachment to possessions, but that the possessions are themselves potentially harmful, because having them creates a danger of increasing one’s attachment to them. Thus Śāntideva claims elsewhere that a bodhisattva “should have fear of material gain (lābha) and of honour,” (ŚSK 16) and that “great gain is among the obstacles to the Mahāyāna” (ŚS 145).

ii. Upward Gifts: Expressing Esteem

The second reason for giving is to express one’s esteem or trust (śraddhā) in beings who have achieved a higher level on the bodhisattva path. The term śraddhā has a number of different and related senses, usually blending together: esteem, trust, confidence, devotion, faith. Maria Hibbets’s (2000) rendering “esteem” may come closest overall to the sense in which Śāntideva uses the term, though it loses the important connotation of trust. Śraddhā, Śāntideva says, is the prasāda (peaceful pleasure) of an unsoiled mind, rooted in respect (gaurava, literally “weightiness,” like the Latin gravitas), without arrogance (ŚS 5). Those without esteem oppose or ridicule buddhas (ŚS 174). One with esteem will listen whenever the Buddha’s word is spoken (ŚS 15); esteem is that by which one approaches the noble ones (Buddhas) and does not do what should not be done (ŚS 316).

When a householder makes a gift to a monk, especially a gift of food, it is called a śraddhādeya, a gift by esteem (ŚS 137-8). Similarly, when the aspiring bodhisattva makes offerings to advanced bodhisattvas and buddhas as part of the seven-part Anuttarapūjā ritual worship in BCA II.10-19, the act expresses esteem. Śāntideva does not use the word śraddhā in this passage, but the feelings it evokes match his descriptions of esteem elsewhere: a pleasurable trust in more advanced beings, recognizing their status as more advanced, that leads to better actions. Just before describing the fabulous offerings he gives, Śāntideva’s narrator describes the esteem he places in the buddhas and bodhisattvas and the good action that will result from doing so:

by becoming your possession, I am in a state of fearlessness; I make the well-being of all beings. I overcome previous bad karma and will make no further bad karma. (BCA II.9)

This esteem has deeply important benefits. It is a pleasure taken in good actions; it is “a maker of gladness about renunciation, a maker of excitement about the Jinas’ (Buddhas’) dharma” (ŚS 3). This combination of trust and pleasure leads one on to good action; as Śāntideva says, those who always have esteem toward a respectable Buddha will abandon neither good conduct nor training (ŚS 3). So the practice of esteem helps increase one’s good karma (ŚS 317). Moreover, to encourage the growth of esteem in a giver, when an aspiring bodhisattva receives a gift, he encourages the giver and makes him feel excited about giving it (ŚS 150).

iii. Downward Gifts: Attracting Others

When one gives for either of the above reasons (expressing nonattachment or expressing esteem), one effectively does so for one’s own spiritual benefit. But Śāntideva also says that one gives to all beings (sarvasatvebhyas, ŚSK 4), for their enjoyment (ŚSK 5), adding that one also preserves the gift for the sake of their enjoyment (satvôpabhogārtham, ŚSK 6). Here he is advocating a different kind of giving, motivated by compassion and aimed at benefitting the recipient. The distinction between the second two types of giving corresponds to Maria Heim’s (Heim 2004, 74-5) distinction between “upward” and “downward” giving, out of esteem and out of compassion.

The reasons Śāntideva offers for downward giving are not as straightforward as they may first appear. For Śāntideva, the recipient of a gift benefits less from possessing the gift object, and more from receiving it in a gift encounter. When a bodhisattva gives a gift, he attracts the recipient to the bodhisattva path, so that the recipient is more likely to become a virtuous bodhisattva. The gift object itself provides little benefit, and could even be harmful (2007, 136-75).

As well as giving possessions and more conventional goods, one also gives good karma to others through its redirection (parināmanā), as noted above. Since Śāntideva tends to see good karma as intrinsically good, in this case the recipient is more likely to benefit from the gift itself. Even so, good karma involves a potential danger, since if it is not redirected it can lead merely to dangerous wealth rather than to awakening.

b. Good Conduct

Of all the perfections, Śāntideva tells us the least about the second one, śīla. This Sanskrit and Pali term has a general sense of “good conduct” or “good habits,” but its particular meaning is less clear. Unlike the final four perfections, it is not identified specifically as the single topic of a chapter in the BCA, and the chapters identified with it in the ŚS (II and V) make little reference to it. Unlike giving, it is not discussed at systematic length in either text. Śāntideva sometimes uses the term in a broad sense that would seem to encompass all of the perfections, to the point of using it interchangeably with puṇya, good karma, or śubha, well-being (Clayton 2006, 73). ŚS chapter V, entitled Śīlapāramitāyām Anarthavarjanam — abandoning of the worthless with respect to the perfection of good conduct — seems like a miscellany of topics, describing a wide variety of actions that Śāntideva endorses. A reader may then be tempted to take up the common usage in which this good conduct refers to “morality,” “virtue” or “ethics” in a general sense (see Clayton 2006, 72-3) — perhaps even a sense that includes the other perfections.

Yet Śāntideva does give some further specification of a way in which he understands “good conduct,” conceptually distinct from the other perfections, even though he does not stick consistently to this usage. His one reference to the perfection of good conduct in the BCA proclaims: “when the mind of cessation (viraticitta) is obtained, the perfection of good conduct is understood [to exist]” (BCAP 53). The ŚS specifies the goal of good conduct in a similar vein, but is more specific about what constitutes good conduct: “whichever practices are causes of meditative concentration (samādhi), those are included in good conduct” (ŚS 121). It seems that good conduct, when understood as a single perfection, consists primarily of practices that aid one to concentrate one’s mind and still its uncontrolled activity.

This suggestion is borne out by the content of the fifth BCA chapter, which, following up the claim about the mind of cessation, details exactly these sorts of practices. (Since this chapter comes immediately before the chapter on patient endurance — the third perfection — it would be a logical place for Śāntideva to discuss good conduct, the second perfection.) The chapter begins by warning the reader of the dangers of an unrestrained mind, comparing it to a mad, rutting elephant, and then specifies a number of practices that Śāntideva claims will help the mind remain under control. We may imagine, then, that this chapter gives us some idea of what Śāntideva means by the perfection of good conduct.

The practices bear some resemblance to Buddhist monastic rules (vinaya), although they could all be followed by lay householders and the text does not restrict them to monks. Śāntideva urges his readers to walk with a downcast gaze, as if continually meditating, but notes that they may look outward to rest their eyes or to greet someone. One should look ahead (or behind) before moving there, he says, and think about one’s actions before undertaking them; one should continually observe the positioning of one’s body. Each of these actions, Śāntideva specifies, allows one to restrain the mind (BCA V.35-40). Similarly, one should avoid idle chatter, or purposeless nervous tics (BCA V.45-6). In general, as Susanne Mrozik notes, “Close careful attention to one’s bodily movements and gestures generates mindfulness and awareness. Disciplining the body is thus a means of disciplining one’s thoughts and feelings” (Mrozik 1998, 63).

Śāntideva notes that the relationship between good conduct and meditative concentration is two-way: “One aiming at meditative concentration should have good conduct, for mindfulness and introspection; so too, one aiming at good conduct should make effort at meditative concentration.” He claims that the “complete perfection of mental action” will comes from the two “mutually enhancing causes” that are good conduct and meditative concentration (ŚS 121).

The second half of the fifth BCA chapter involves details about bodily comportment which aim at pleasing others, rather than at focusing the mind; similar instructions are found in the sixth chapter of the ŚS. It is possible, though not clear, that Śāntideva also intends these to be included under good conduct. Śāntideva here enjoins etiquette of various kinds (do not spit in public, do not make noises while eating) and a pleasant tone of speaking (BCA V.71-96, ŚS 124-7). Mrozik (2007, 75-6) notes that such actions are intended to generate prasāda, a kind of peaceful pleasure, in those who observe the bodhisattva. Lele (2007, 151-9) suggests further that the goal of generating this prasāda is to attract them to the bodhisattva path, making them more likely to enter that path and increase their well-being.

c. Patient Endurance

Śāntideva divides patient endurance (kṣānti) into three major varieties: first, enduring suffering (duṣkhâdhivāsanakṣānti); second, dharmic patience, the patient endurance that comes from reflecting on the Buddha’s teaching, the dharma (dharmanidhyānakṣānti); and third, patience toward others’ wrongdoing (parâpakāramarṣanakṣānti, ŚS 179). The first, which Śāntideva opposes to frustration (daurmanasya), is closer to the English word “endurance”; the third, which Śāntideva opposes to anger (dveṣa), is closer to the English word “patience.” For this reason it is helpful to use a two-word term like “patient endurance” to encapsulate the idea of kṣānti as a whole. Śāntideva does not link these phenomena under the rubric of patient endurance merely for the sake of convenience or etymology; rather, patient endurance has common elements that pervade them all. In all three cases, one remains calm and even happy in the face of various undesired events — pains, frustrations, wrongs — that one might face.

Dharmic patience, the second variety — as Śāntideva describes it in BCA VI.22-32 — is juxtaposed against anger, and involves being patient with others’ bad actions. For this reason, it seems largely like a subtype of the third type, patience toward wrongdoing, which involves reflecting on the fact that their actions all have causes. Śāntideva likely treats the two as distinct in order to emphasize the particular importance of metaphysical reasons for patient endurance. In terms of the actions and mental dispositions that they entail, they do not appear to be different from each other. So we may here subsume this second variety under the third, except as otherwise specified.

There are at least two ways in which enduring suffering and patience toward wrongdoing are closely related in Śāntideva’s work. First, there is a logical or analytical relationship. When one is wronged by others, it is likely to be an undesired event, and therefore experienced as suffering. So, effectively, the events that evoke patience toward wrongdoing are a subset of those that evoke the endurance of suffering. The appropriate reactions are intertwined as well. We see this when Śāntideva discusses being the victim of theft. While he addresses theft in the context of anger, and more generally of patience toward wrongdoing, the reason he gives to remain patient is that possessions are dangerous to have anyway (BCA VI.100) — a central part of Śāntideva’s justifications for nonattachment, which itself is very closely tied to enduring suffering.

Second, there is a causal relationship. Enduring suffering, as Śāntideva discusses it, requires that one fight frustration; patience toward wrongdoing requires that one fight anger. And both of Śāntideva’s texts (ŚS 179 and BCA VI.7-8) note that anger feeds on frustration; so enduring suffering makes it easier to have patience toward wrongdoing.

i. Happiness from Enduring Suffering

Śāntideva’s case for enduring suffering is relatively straightforward: one will feel less suffering and be happier. Early in his discussion of frustration (daurmanasya), Śāntideva makes the pragmatic point that it accomplishes little. So it is not only an unpleasant mental state, but an unnecessary one: “If indeed there is a remedy, then what’s the point of frustration? And if there is no remedy, then what’s the point of frustration?” (BCA VI.10).

Enduring suffering can lead to happiness, for Śāntideva, in a particularly extreme meditative state (samādhi). He refers to this state as the sarvadharmasukhakrānta, “making happiness toward all phenomena.” The passage describing this meditative state is one of the most provocative in the entire ŚS. Śāntideva says that “for a bodhisattva who has obtained this meditative state, with respect to all sense objects, pain is felt as happiness indeed, not as suffering or as indifference” (ŚS 181). He proceeds to describe a panoply of graphic tortures in a startlingly upbeat manner. For example:

[The bodhisattva who has attained this meditative state], while being fried in oil, or while pounded like pounded sugarcane, or while crushed like a reed, or while being burned in the way that oil or ghee or yogurt are burned — has a happy thought arisen. (ŚS 181)

While a reader might cringe at the literal masochism in this passage, it is also not hard to see the power of its appeal: It strongly suggests that a bodhisattva can be happy anywhere, any time, in any condition. And there is a particular practice that the bodhisattva pursues to reach this state. Whenever he is subjected to such an unpleasant fate, he makes a mental determination or vow (pranidhāna) that everyone, from those who honor him to those who torture him, should reach the great awakening (ŚS 182). In the BCA he suggests starting with small pains to learn to endure bigger ones: “because of the practice of mild distress, even great distress is tolerable” (BCA VI.14). Prajñākaramati draws a direct connection between the two, quoting the ŚS passage in his commentary on the BCA verse.

ii. The Case Against Anger

Śāntideva’s arguments for patience toward wrongdoing consist of arguments against anger, against which this patience is juxtaposed. He lays out these arguments primarily in the sixth chapter of the BCA; for a detailed commentary on this chapter, see Thurman 2004. His arguments here derive from premises both naturalistic and supernaturalistic: “One who destroys anger is happy in this world and the next” (BCA VI.6).

Śāntideva’s naturalistic arguments against anger rest first on psychological grounds: “The mind does not get peace, nor enjoy pleasure and happiness, nor find sleep or satisfaction, when the dart of anger rests in the heart” (BCA VI.3). This set of psychological claims has a strong intuitive plausibility, in our context as well as his; it is probably not difficult for anyone to remember times that anger has negatively affected her peace of mind or pleasure or sleep.

Beyond this, Śāntideva seeks to minimize the significance of others’ wrongdoing (apakāra). He is especially concerned to neutralize insults and the destruction of praise. He asks: “The gang of contempt, harsh speech and infamy does not bind my body. Why, O mind, do you get enraged by it?” (BCA VI.53)

Śāntideva also offers severe warnings concerning the karmic consequences of anger. There is no bad karma equal to anger, he says, so patient endurance is the most effective means to reduce bad karma (BCA VI.2). He warns that anger leads to suffering in the hell realms far greater than the suffering that originally provoked the anger:

If suffering merely here and now cannot be endured, why is anger, the cause of distress in hell, not restrained? In the same way, for the sake of anger I have been placed in hells thousands of times; I have done this neither for my own sake nor for anyone else’s. (BCA VI.73-4)

There is only one kind of anger that Śāntideva seems to approve of, effectively an exception that proves the rule. He approves of anger when it is directed at anger itself: “Let anger toward anger be my choice” (BCA VI.41). More generally, he suggests elsewhere that anger at “my enemies, craving, anger and so on” (BCA IV.28) might be valuable: “Lodged in my own mind, these well-stood ones still harm me. In this very case I do not get angry. Damn, what unsuitable patience (sahiṣṇutā)!” (BCA IV.29).

Śāntideva also makes the case for dharmic patience (dharmanidhyānakṣānti) in BCA VI.22-32; this, as mentioned earlier, is patience toward wrongdoing which is informed by metaphysical insight. Śāntideva’s point here is that the emotion of anger comes out of an incorrect belief about the world — namely that other agents can appropriately be blamed for their actions. “I have no anger at my bile and so on, though they make great suffering. Why is there anger at sentient beings? They too are angry due to a cause” (BCA VI.22). Anger, whether my own or another’s, has its causes. It is not chosen; it is merely another product of the universe’s dependent arising (BCA VI.23-26). Moreover, there is no self which is capable of being an agent of anger (BCA VI.27-30). And “therefore, whether one has seen an enemy or a friend doing something wrong, having considered that the act has causes, one should become happy” (BCA VI.33). Mark Siderits (2005) refers to this argument for dharmic patience as “paleo-compatibilist,” and suggests that it can help resolve contemporary debates on free will and determinism.

These arguments against anger are phrased in terms that could convince someone not already on the path. Other arguments are directed specifically at bodhisattvas. As has been mentioned before, it is crucial for the bodhisattva to win beings over; and anger interferes with this activity, where desire (rāga) might be able on some occasions to help with it. This is why anger, in Śāntideva’s eyes, is far worse than desire, though desire and anger are both afflictions (kleṣas) that cloud the mind and lead one on to suffering (ŚS 164).

He claims further that “bodhisattvas who are not excellent in means (upāyakuśala) fear downfalls connected with desire (rāga); bodhisattvas who are excellent in means fear downfalls connected with anger, not downfalls connected with desire” (ŚS 164-5). Excellence in means (upāyakauśalya), the ability to teach others in the appropriate way to bring them onto the path, is deeply hindered by anger. Unlike desire, anger has no saving graces. Anger both creates suffering for oneself and interferes with one’s ability to benefit others; this is why nothing is as karmically bad as anger, or as karmically good as patient endurance.

d. Heroic Strength

Śāntideva devotes relatively little attention to the fourth perfection, heroic strength (vīrya). Each of his texts has a short chapter (BCA VII and ŚS X) devoted to it; parallel discussions occur in the fourth chapter of the BCA. He defines heroic strength as “excellent effort” (kuśalotsaha, BCA VII.2), effort that is both skillful and virtuous — a tireless striving on the bodhisattva path. In BCA VII, he contrasts heroic strength with laziness (ālasya, BCA VII.3). The primary point of BCA VII is to insist on the urgency of the bodhisattva’s task. It is rare to be born as a human, and a short human life leaves one with little time for adequate spiritual development, so it is crucial to devote oneself wholeheartedly to the task.

ŚS X, the shortest chapter in the text — a mere four pages — explains the importance of listening to sacred texts (śruta). The topic is surprising, since it seems tangentially related, at best, to the more straightforward heroic strength addressed in BCA VII. The connection seems to be that, to listen to sacred texts properly, one must do so tirelessly. If one does not do so, Śāntideva claims, even a sacred text can lead to “destruction” (vināśa), probably because one reads and applies the text too selectively (ŚS 189).

e. Meditation

The fifth perfection, discussed in BCA VIII and ŚS XI-XIII, is meditation (dhyāna). Meditation for Śāntideva is very much an intellectual and even philosophical exercise, not merely a stilling of the mind; some of Śāntideva’s most famous arguments appear in a context of discussions of meditation. Śāntideva emphasizes that a calming and stilling of the mind is essential to meditation, and enjoins his reader to flee society and find a solitary spot in the wilderness in order to achieve the proper degree of undistracted calm (BCA VIII.1-40, ŚS 193-201). But becoming calm and solitary, in both texts, is only the first step to grasping arguments and transformative techniques with an explicit cognitive content.

In the BCA, the first meditation that Śāntideva describes sharpens his emphasis on solitude: one considers the foulness of the human body. Specifically, his male audience is urged to reflect on the foulness of a potential female lover. He notes that the beloved will invariably become a corpse, highlights the repulsiveness of corpses, and asks the reader rhetorically why the living beloved seems any less repulsive (VIII.41-7). He then calls attention to the repulsiveness of the body’s waste products, natural smells, and fluids (VIII.48-71). Next he notes the great effort one must take in finding and keeping a lover, and the ultimate vanity of such efforts (VIII.72-83).

This meditation takes on a strongly misogynist tone, describing as it does the repulsiveness of female bodies. A contemporary reader should keep in mind its intent as a critique of lust, the passion which so easily distracts the mind from the bodhisattva’s path. While the argument is phrased in terms of the foulness of a woman’s body, its logic would apply equally well to the foulness of a man’s body, if imagined by a heterosexual female or homosexual male meditator. (Śāntideva never inverts the argument this way himself. As Wilson 1996 notes, historically Buddhists have never turned the arguments about female foulness around to have it apply to men, even when speaking to a female audience. The point is noted here to stress the relevance of these meditations for a contemporary philosophical audience, rightly skeptical of misogynistic claims.) The ideal to achieve in this lifetime, for Śāntideva, is that of a male or female monk who forswears lust and sexuality, and he calls attention to the body’s repulsive aspects in order to convince his readers of this ideal’s value.

i. Equalization of Self and Other

The two meditations which follow in BCA VIII, on the relationship between oneself and another, are Śāntideva’s most famous. The first of these is known as the equalization of self and other (parātmasamatā). In this meditation Śāntideva argues for an ethical conclusion from a metaphysical premise: because the self is empty and unreal, it makes little sense to protect only oneself from suffering and not others.

The arguments are framed against a hypothetical objector (pūrvapakṣin) who wishes to prevent only his own suffering, but not that of others. Suffering here has a strong normative force; that suffering is bad and worthy of prevention is taken as self-evident, and Śāntideva assumes that his readers will share that assumption. When an imagined objector asks why suffering should be prevented at all, he responds, “No one disputes that!” (BCA VIII.103) If we substitute “the absence of suffering” for “pleasure,” Śāntideva’s claim here seems to work like Alasdair MacIntyre’s interpretation of Mill’s claim that we know pleasure is desirable because men desire it:

He treats the thesis that all men desire pleasure as a factual assertion which guarantees the success of an ad hominem apeal to anyone who denies his conclusion. If anyone denies that pleasure is desirable, then we can ask him, But don’t you desire it? and we know in advance that he must answer yes, and consequently must admit that pleasure is desirable. (MacIntyre 1966, 239)

To deny that suffering should be prevented at all, in other words, is to argue in bad faith: anyone who makes such a claim does not really believe it. It is not hard to see the intuitive force of Śāntideva’s claim about suffering; while one might come up with exceptions, in general most human beings in most contexts have viewed suffering as something bad and undesirable.

The selfish objector is right, then, to believe that suffering should be prevented. Where he goes awry is in focusing only on his own suffering; this focus turns out to be absurd. There is no self that endures from moment to moment, so one’s own future self is as different from one’s present self as other beings are: “If [someone else] is not protected because his suffering cannot hurt me — the sufferings of a future body are not mine. Why is that hurt protected against?” (BCA VIII.97) Śāntideva’s arguments here have been compared to those of Derek Parfit (1984), who also attacks the metaphysical premise of selfhood as a premise for an altruistic ethics.

Paul Williams (1998a, 30) notes that most commentators, including Prajñākaramati, have read this verse so that the “future body” (āgāmikāya) means only the bodies one will inhabit in future rebirths, not the future state of one’s body in the present life. A literal reading of this verse and the next would suggest that they are right; the next verse adds that “one is dead, a very different other one is born” (BCA VIII.98). So Williams thinks that “from a textual point of view” this verse must be correct. However, later Tibetan commentators, especially rGyal tshab rje, interpret the verse so that it could refer to any present suffering one might try to prevent (Williams 1998a, 32-6). The “death” and “birth” would likely then refer to the body’s non-enduring nature — dying as the present moment passes away and being born anew in the following moment — rather than to literal death and rebirth. Logically this seems a more satisfying reading. The argument seems entirely superfluous if it refers only to future births; based on everything else that Śāntideva says, one concerned with better future births should, above all, prevent the suffering of others.

Śāntideva makes an additional argument beyond the point about future selves. Even the present self should be broken up into its parts. When the opponent objects that one who suffers should only prevent the suffering that belongs to him, Śāntideva retorts: “The foot’s suffering is not the hand’s. Why does [the hand] protect [the foot]?” (BCA VIII.99)

Williams (1998b) has attempted to refute Śāntideva’s arguments against egoism, claiming that the concept of suffering or pain makes little sense without a subject or self to feel the suffering. Williams’s refutation has been controversial, provoking Barbra Clayton (Clayton 2001), John Pettit (1999) and Mark Siderits (Siderits 2000) all to defend Śāntideva’s claims.

Why do these arguments appear in the chapter on meditation, when the primary focus of that chapter seems to concern the kind of metaphysical insight that is the topic of the following chapter? Two reasons suggest themselves. First, the arguments prepare the audience for the more imaginatively focused practice of the exchange and self and other. Second, as Crosby and Skilton suggest(1995, 84-5), these meditations derive from Cittamātra (Yogācāra) metaphysical views on the ultimate equivalence of self and other. Śāntideva considers these Cittamātra views to be only a step on the road to the highest Madhyamaka view (see BCA IX). These arguments, then, are really true only at the level of conventional truth, not at the level of wordless ultimate reality, the object of real metaphysical insight.

ii. Exchange of Self and Other

The last meditation in the chapter is called the exchange of self and other (parātmaparivartana). In it, Śāntideva attempts to put the equalization of self and other into practice, even taking it a step further to dissolve all the meditator’s vestiges of egoism. Here he urges his readers to create “a sense of self in inferiors and others, and a sense of other in oneself,” (VIII.140) to literally form a concept of “I” (ahamkāra) with respect to others, just as one would do with respect to the “drops of semen and blood” (VIII.158) which created the entity that one would normally consider a self. The intervening verses manifest this idea in practice. Here Śāntideva switches pronouns and grammatical persons so that the third person refers to the meditator and the first person to “others.” The new “I” that is the others can then feel envy and contempt toward the “he” that was oneself.

One now imagines how “he” — that is, oneself — seems happy, wealthy and praised, while “I” — others — “am” miserable, poor and despised; “I” should envy “him” (BCA VIII.141-2). Having imagined oneself from the viewpoint of an envious inferior, one then imagines the inverse viewpoint of a contemptuous superior:

We joyous ones see him finally mistreated, and the mocking laughter of all the people here and there. That wretch even had a rivalry with me! . . . Even if he were to have wealth, we should take it forcibly, having given him a mere pittance, if he does any work for us. And he should be caused to fall from happiness. (BCA VIII.150-4)

This sadomasochistic advice and the play of pronouns work together to end feelings of egoism or attachment to self. Meditating in this way, one comes to live entirely for others.

iii. Meditations Against the Three Poisons

The above meditations from the BCA, while Śāntideva’s most famous, are not the only meditations that he prescribes. In the ŚS, after briefly advising solitude and the control of thoughts, Śāntideva presents in turn three meditations intended to counter the three mental “poisons” which, in Buddhist thought, are responsible for suffering: desire (rāga), anger (dveṣa) and delusion (moha).

Against desire, Śāntideva describes a meditation on the foulness of the body, as in the BCA (ŚS 209-12). To counteract anger, Śāntideva prescribes the practice of friendliness or love (maitrī, ŚS 212-19). This practice takes a number of forms, but the most notable is the redirection (parināmanā) of good karma toward others’ benefit. (This will be discussed below under “good and bad karma.”) Such acts are discussed at a number of places in Śāntideva’s texts; at ŚS 213-16 he specifically refers to the practice of friendliness, which is intended to counteract anger. The way that one redirects good karma, in practice, is through an expressly stated wish: for example, “Whoever is suffering distress of body or mind in any of the ten directions — may they obtain oceans of happiness and joy through my good karma” (BCA X.2). This rationale for karmic redirection could apply even to those skeptical whether a supernatural process of karmic causality will actually work: by regularly wishing that one’s own good deeds will benefit others’ well-being, one can at least diminish the anger that one feels toward them.

Finally, to counteract delusion, one meditates on dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), the Buddhist theory that all things come to exist in dependence upon other causes (ŚS 219-28). This meditation leads into Śāntideva’s discussion of the final perfection, metaphysical insight.

f. Metaphysical Insight

The sixth and final perfection in Śāntideva’s thought is prajñā, a complex term which this article renders as “metaphysical insight.” The term “insight” emphasizes the depth and transformative nature of this knowledge — as we will see, Śāntideva makes strong claims about the effects that prajñā has on its possessor, so that it is classified as a perfection alongside patient endurance and restrained good conduct. The term “metaphysical” emphasizes the specific content of this knowledge: claims about the nature of reality. This is a relatively loose and nontechnical sense of the term “metaphysics” that one may find in introductory textbooks on philosophy — for example, “Metaphysics is the attempt to say what reality is” (Solomon 2006, 113). This section begins with a discussion of the ideas and arguments that Śāntideva includes as the content of metaphysical insight, and then proceeds to discuss their significance for ethics and the conduct of life.

i. Content

Śāntideva’s views on metaphysics follow those of the Madhyamaka school of thought, associated with Nāgārjuna. (See Nagarjuna and Madhyamaka Buddhism for more detail.) For Madhyamaka, all things, especially the self, are empty (śūnya) and dependently originated (pratītyasamutpanna) — they have no essential or abiding existence. Tibetan tradition has typically associated Śāntideva with the more radical Prāsangika Mādhyamika school, as his metaphysical arguments follow their approach of reductio ad absurdum (prasanga) argument rather than the independent syllogisms (svatantra) of the Svātantrika school. On the other hand, Akira Saito (1996, 261) has argued that “we cannot be too careful” in using the term Prāsangika with reference to Śāntideva. (See McClintock and Dreyfus 2002 for a discussion of the distinction between the Prāsangika and Svātantrika schools.)

Śāntideva’s metaphysics is widely studied and commented on, both in Tibetan tradition and in the West. (For Tibetan commentaries see Dalai Lama XIV 1988; Palden and Seunam 1993. For Western commentaries see Oldmeadow 1994; Sweet 1977.) Nevertheless, the content of Śāntideva’s metaphysics does not seem particularly original; as Michael Sweet’s book-length study of Śāntideva’s metaphysics notes,

we do not find that his philosophical concerns or patterns of argumentation differ in any significant manner from those of Nāgārjuna, and especially from those of Candrakīrti, the great systematizer of the Prāsangika-Mādhyamika who preceded Śāntideva by at least a century. (Sweet 1977, 14)

Where Śāntideva’s approach innovates is in the way that he draws ethical conclusions directly from his metaphysical premises. Many Buddhist texts draw soteriological conclusions of some sort from metaphysical premises — the nature of the universe is such that everyday life is filled with suffering but one can be liberated from it. Moreover, texts often draw ethical conclusions from these soteriological ideas. So in earlier texts there is an indirect connection from metaphysics to ethics by way of soteriology. Śāntideva, on the other hand, argues directly from metaphysics to advice about conduct in life, in a way that is relatively unusual in South Asian Buddhist literature. One exception is Candrakīrti himself, who derives ethical conclusions from metaphysics in his Catuhṣataka commentary (see Lang 2003), though his approach to doing so is significantly different from Śāntideva’s.

Śāntideva’s prasanga arguments avoid foundational claims, in the stricter sense of attempts to definitively establish a position from which other claims can be deduced. Any such position would itself be considered empty and therefore in some sense flawed. Indeed, an earlier Madhyamaka text, the Vigrahavyāvartani of Nāgārjuna, famously refuted its opponents by proclaiming: “If I had any position, then I would have a flaw [in my argument]. But I have no position; therefore I have no flaw at all” (VV 29). Rather, the approach is intended to be purely dialectical and critical, examining alternative positions and knocking them down, as Śāntideva does in BCA IX. Because Śāntideva is deconstructing concepts and deriving ethical significance from this deconstruction, William Edelglass (2007) compares his philosophy to that of Emmanuel Lévinas.

Claims to have no position may seem absurd at first glance, especially when associated with a thinker like Śāntideva who seems to make many positive claims about how one should live. Śāntideva’s response relies on the central Madhyamaka distinction between conventional (samvriti) and ultimate (paramārtha) truth (e.g. BCA IX.2). The ultimate truth is inexpressible (anabhilāpya), untaught (adeṣita) and unmanifest (aprakāśita, ŚS 256); it is nonconceptual, and therefore nonrational. But because we are caught up in illusion, seeing substance, we still need to make provisional statements at a conventional level to make ourselves and others aware of this illusion and free ourselves from it. Since the ultimate truth is inexpressible, all of Śāntideva’s actual claims need to be understood at the conventional level.

The above is what Śāntideva appears to say in his own words, at any rate. It is worth noting here that the Tibetan dGe lugs (Geluk) school argues that such claims cannot be taken literally and that in fact the ultimate truth is accessible to the intellect, although other commentators from the Sa skya (Sakya) and rNying ma (Nyingma) schools accept a more literal interpretation like the one I have just provided (Sweet 1977, 20).

The distinction between ultimate and conventional truth lends support to a number of Śāntideva’s practical arguments. Especially, it supports his self-interested case for altruism on the grounds of the bodhisattva’s happiness: “All who are suffering in the world [are suffering] because of desire for their own happiness. All who are happy in the world [are happy] because of desire for others’ happiness” (BCA VIII.129). Śāntideva does not explain how this psychological claim is supposed to work. Lele (2007, 65-6) ties the claim to Śāntideva’s theory of nonattachment (aparigraha); concern for oneself and one’s own particular interests leads to painful feelings of grief, loss, and fear when, as inevitably happens, those interests are harmed. But however such arguments are supposed to work, they would seem to be undercut by another claim of Śāntideva’s: namely, that bodhisattvas still suffer in a sense, because of their compassion for others. He claims: “Just as one whose body is on fire has no joy at all, even through all pleasures, exactly so there is no way to joy with respect to the distress of beings, for those made of compassion” (BCA VI.123; see also ŚS 156, 166).

The distinction between conventional and ultimate, however, helps one resolve this apparent problem — for the claim that bodhisattvas suffer is made merely at the conventional level of truth. Śāntideva argues that suffering itself is unreal (BCA IX.88-91); and only one who realizes the ultimate truth, it seems, will be able to really recognize this unreality. This recognition is the way in which it is possible for suffering to end, as the Third Noble Truth of Buddhism promises. It is also probably part of the reason that Śāntideva proclaims that happy people are happy because they desire others’ happiness — a bodhisattva, who has lost the illusion of self, can also lose the illusion of suffering and thereby escape it.

If suffering is unreal, however, one may wonder why it should be prevented. A similar worry applies to good and bad karma. Śāntideva claims, after all, that good and bad karma themselves arise out of illusion (BCA IX.11); like everything else we can speak of, they are ultimately empty. Clayton (2006, 97-8) argues that this point implies that ethical action, good karma, or eliminating suffering are unnecessary or insignificant. She quotes Richard Hayes (1994, 38) to the effect that maintaining a sense of the importance of ethics in such a philosophy is merely “philosophical rigour and integrity being compromised by the perceived need to preserve a social institution.” She finds herself “not quite cynical enough” to doubt Śāntideva’s sincerity in accordance with Hayes’s quote, but provides no alternative explanation for why Śāntideva might have still believed in ethical action. Lele (2007, 89-90) argues to the contrary that Śāntideva maintains his philosophical integrity through the conventional-ultimate distinction. Ultimately good and bad karma are unreal, but they are very real at the conventional level. Most people remain trapped in the conventional level, where suffering occurs, and so they experience the suffering as real. For them, it is this conventional level of truth that matters.

ii. Practical Implications

Metaphysical insight has three major ethical and soteriological implications for Śāntideva, some of which we have already seen. First, knowing the nonexistence of self will lead one to benefit others. Second, one who knows dependent origination can become more patient with others’ wrongdoing, because he will know to avoid blaming them. Finally, “one who knows emptiness is not emotionally attached to worldly phenomena, because he is independent [of them]” (ŚS 264); recognizing the emptiness of things allows one to attach less significance to them.

These implications, for Śāntideva, are not merely a matter of logical implication. There is also a practical, cause-and-effect relationship between one’s realization of the metaphysical claims and one’s actions and mental states. For this reason Luis Gómez (1994, 121) notes that the closing verses of BCA IX “leave no room for doubt that we are dealing with a technology of the self” which is also a philosophical discourse. The passage quoted above does not merely state that one who knows emptiness also knows that he should not be emotionally attached to worldly phenomena; it states further that he himself is not in fact so attached (na samhriyate). Elsewhere in the text Śāntideva makes other, similar, causal claims that metaphysical insight will cause one to feel and act differently. For example, after having made a series of logical arguments for the equivalence of self and other, he immediately comes to add: “Those whose mental dispositions are developed in this way (evam), for whom the suffering of others is equal to their loves, go down into the Avīci hell like geese [into] a lotus pond” (BCA VIII.107, emphasis added). The “in this way” (Sanskrit evam) indicates that the logical arguments themselves are a way to develop mental dispositions; hearing these arguments is the thing that develops one’s mind to treat others’ suffering equally to one’s own. Metaphysical insight is not merely an idea added to a stock of knowledge, with which one can do as one pleases; it has direct consequences for one’s emotional states.

Such a view seems perplexing to contemporary Western ears, including some informed by Buddhism. Understanding ideas often seems not to have this liberating effect. David Burton puts the problem well, in terms of his personal experience:

I do not seem to be ignorant about the impermanence of entities. I appear to understand that entities have no fixed essence and that they often change in disagreeable ways. I seem to understand that what I possess will fall out of my possession. I apparently accept that all entities must pass away. And I seem to acknowledge that my craving causes suffering. Yet I am certainly not free from craving and attachment. . . . How, then, might one preserve the common Buddhist claim that knowledge of the three characteristics of existence [i.e. nonself, impermanence and suffering] results in liberation in the face of this objection? (Burton 2004, 31)

Burton explores several potential hypotheses to resolve his question. He labels the hypothesis which seems to come closest to Śāntideva’s view as “insufficient attentiveness and reflection.” That is, that for those who have not experienced the beneficial ethical, emotional or soteriological consequences that are presumed to accrue from knowledge of Buddhist ideas, their belief in such ideas “is something they have thought about from time to time perhaps, but they do not bring it to mind often enough” (Burton 2004, 48-9).

Śāntideva suggests such a hypothesis in two ways. First, he frequently mentions the shifting and changing nature of the mind; for example, he notes that the mind is “like a river flow, unstable, broken up and dissolved when produced,” and “like lightning, unsteadily cut off in a moment” (ŚS 234). Second, within the chapter of the BCA on metaphysical insight, he speaks of “cultivating,” or meditating on, arguments: “this reasoning (vicāra) is meditated on as an antidote to that [fixation on imagination]” (BCA IX.92). This point is reinforced elsewhere in the text; as we have seen, his most famous metaphysical argument, on the equivalence of self and other (BCA VIII.90-119), occurs in the context of a particular meditation, within the BCA’s chapter on meditation (dhyāna). It is not enough, for Śāntideva, to find an argument persuasive and then move on to other things; it must be fixed in one’s mind.

6. References and Further Reading

a. Primary Works

BCA — Śāntideva, Bodhicaryāvatāra. Edition: Bodhicaryāvatāra of Śāntideva with the commentary Pañjikā of Prajñākaramati; ed. P.L. Vaidya (1960), Buddhist Sanskrit Texts XII, Darbhanga, India: Mithila Institute. References given are to chapter and verse numbers.

BCAP — Prajñākaramati, Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā. Edition: Bodhicaryāvatāra of Śāntideva with the commentary Pañjikā of Prajñākaramati; ed. P.L. Vaidya (1960), Buddhist Sanskrit Texts XII, Darbhanga, India: Mithila Institute. Page references given are to the Poussin edition (listed with “P” in the Vaidya edition’s margins).

NE — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Edition: J. Bywater, available for download and online search at www.perseus.tufts.edu as of 14 Aug 2007.

ŚS — Śāntideva, Śikṣāsamuccaya. Edition: Çikshāsamuccaya: a compendium of Buddhistic teachings, compiled by Çāntideva chiefly from earlier Mahāyāna sūtras; ed. Cecil Bendall (1970), Bibliotheca Buddhica I, Osnabruck, Germany: Biblio Verlag.

ŚSK — Śāntideva, Śikṣāsamuccaya Kārikā, in the Bendall edition of the ŚS above.

VV — Nāgārjuna, Vigrahavyāvartani. Edition: Vigrahavyāvartani of Nāgārjuna: Sanskrit Text, eds. Christian Lindtner and Richard Mahoney (2003), available for download at http://indica-et-buddhica.org as of 14 Aug 2007.

b. Translations Cited

Bendall, Cecil. 1970. Introduction. In Çikshāsamuccaya: A Compendium of Buddhistic Teaching Compiled By Çāntideva Chiefly From Earlier Mahāyāna-Sūtras. Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag.
Crosby, Kate, and Andrew Skilton. 1995. The Bodhicaryāvatāra: A New Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wallace, Vesna A., and B. Alan Wallace, eds. 1997. A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion.

c. General Studies of Śāntideva

Brassard, Francis. 2000. The Concept of Bodhicitta in Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Clayton, Barbra. 2006. Moral Theory in Śāntideva’s Śikṣāsamuccaya: Cultivating the Fruits of Virtue. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon.
Cooper, David E., ed. 1998. Ethics: The Classic Readings. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Dayal, Har. 1970. The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Griffiths, Paul J. 1999. Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang. 1986. Meaningful to Behold: A Commentary to Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. London: Tharpa Publications.
Harvey, Peter. 2000. An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Issues. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hedinger, Jürg. 1984. Aspekte der Schulung in der Laufbahn eines Bodhisattva: Dargestellt nach dem Śikṣāsamuccaya des Śāntideva. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
Lele, Amod. 2007. Ethical Revaluation in the Thought of Śāntideva. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Harvard University.
Mahoney, Richard. 2002. Of the Progress of the Bodhisattva: The Bodhisattvamārga in the Śikṣāsamuccaya. University of Canterbury.
Pezzali, Amalia. 1968. Śāntideva: Mystique Bouddhiste Des Viie Et Viiie Siècles. Florence: Vallecchi Editore.
Rinpoche, Thrangu. 2002. A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life of Shantideva: A Commentary. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications.
Tobden, Geshe Yeshe. 2005. The Way of Awakening: A Commentary on Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara. Somerville, MA: Wisdom.
Williams, Paul. 1995. General Introduction: Śāntideva and His World. In The Bodhicaryāvatāra. Ed. Kate Crosby, and Andrew Skilton, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

d. Specialized Studies

Clayton, Barbra. 2001. Compassion as a Matter of Fact: The Argument From No-Self to Selflessness in Śāntideva’s Śikṣāsamuccaya. Contemporary Buddhism 2 (1): 83-97.
Dalai Lama XIV. 1988. Transcendent Wisdom: A Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of Śāntideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion.
de Jong, J.W. 1975. La légende de Śāntideva. Indo-Iranian Journal 16 (3): 161-82.
de Rachewiltz, Igor. 1996. The Mongolian Tanjur Version of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, Edited and Transcribed, With a Word-Index and a Photo-Reproduction of the Original Text (1748). Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz.
Edelglass, William. 2007. Ethics and the Subversion of Conceptual Reification in Lévinas and Śāntideva. In Deconstruction and the Ethical in Asian Thought. Ed. Youru Wang, London and New York: Routledge.
Gómez, Luis O. 1994. Presentations of Self: Personal Dimensions of Ritualized Speech. In Other Selves: Autobiography and Biography in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Ed. Phyllis Granoff, and Koichi Shinohara, Oakville, ON and Buffalo, NY: Mosaic Press.
Gómez, Luis O. 1999. The Way of the Translators: Three Recent Translations of Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra. Buddhist Literature 1 262-354.
Goodman, Charles. 2008. Consequentialism, Agent-Neutrality, and Mahāyāna Ethics. Philosophy East and West 58 (1): 17-35.
Harrison, Paul. 2007. The Case of the Vanishing Poet: New Light on Śāntideva and the Śikṣā-Samuccaya. In Festschrift für Michael Hahn, zum 65. Geburtstag von Freunden und Schülern Überreicht. Ed. Konrad Klaus, and Jens-Uwe Hartmann. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien.
Kanaoka, S. 1963. Regional Characteristics of Mongolian Buddhism: A Study on the Basis of the “Bodhicaryāvatāra”. Bukkyo Shigaku 10 (4): 15-24.
Palden, Khentchen Kunzang, and Minyak Kunzang Seunam. 1993. Comprendre La Vacuité: Deux Commentaires Du Chapitre Ix De La Marche Vers L’éveil De Shāntideva. Peyzac-le-Moustier, France: Éditions Padmakara.
Mrozik, Susanne. 1998. The Relationship Between Morality and the Body in Monastic Training According to the Śikṣāsamuccaya. Harvard University.
Mrozik, Susanne. 2007. Virtuous Bodies: The Physical Dimensions of Morality in Buddhist Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Oldmeadow, P.R. 1994. A Study of the Wisdom Chapter (Prajñāparamitā Pariccheda) of the Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā of Prajñākaramati. Australian National University.
Onishi, Kaoru. 2003. The Bodhicaryāvatāra and Its Monastic Aspects: On the Problem of Representation. University of Michigan.
Pettit, John. 1999. Altruism and Reality: Studies in the Philosophy of the Bodhicharyavatara. Journal of Buddhist Ethics 6.
Saito, Akira. 1993. A Study of Akṣayamati (=Śāntideva)’s Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra as Found in the Tibetan Manuscripts From Tun-Huang. Faculty of Humanities, Miye University.
Saito, Akira. 1996. Śāntideva in the History of Mādhyamika Philosophy. In Buddhism in India and Abroad: An Integrating Influence in Vedic and Post-Vedic Perspective. Ed. Kalpakam Sankarnarayan, Motohiro Yoritomi, and Shubhada A. Joshi. Mumbai: Somaiya Publications Pvt. Ltd.
Siderits, Mark. 2000. The Reality of Altruism: Reconstructing Śāntideva. Philosophy East and West 50 (3): 412-24.
Siderits, Mark. 2005. Freedom, Caring and Buddhist Philosophy. Contemporary Buddhism 6 (2): 87-113.
Sweet, Michael J. 1977. Śāntideva and the Mādhyamika: The Prajñāpāramitā-Pariccheda of the Bodhicaryāvatāra. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Sweet, Michael J. 1996. Mental Purification (Blo Sbyong): A Native Tibetan Genre of Religious Literature. In Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre. Ed. José Ignacio Cabezón, and Roger R. Jackson. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion.
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e. Related Interest

Burton, David. 2004. Buddhism, Knowledge, and Liberation: A Philosophical Analysis of Suffering. Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Chang, Garma C.C., ed. 1991. A Treasury of Mahāyāna Sūtras: Selections From the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Harrison, Paul. 1987. Who Gets to Ride in the Great Vehicle? Self-Image and Identity Among Followers of the Early Mahāyāna. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 10 (2): 67-89.
Hayes, Richard. 1994. The Analysis of Karma in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya. In Hermeneutical Paths to the Sacred Worlds of India. Ed. Katherine K. Young, Atlanta: Scholars Press.
Heim, Maria. 2004. Theories of the Gift in South Asia: Hindu, Buddhist and Jain Reflections on Dāna. New York and Oxford: Routledge.
Hibbets, Maria. 2000. The Ethics of Esteem. Journal of Buddhist Ethics 7 26-42.
Kajiyama, Yuichi. 1989. Transfer and Transformation of Merits in Relation to Emptiness. In Studies in Buddhist Philosophy (Selected Papers). Ed. Katsumi Minaki. Kyoto: Rinsen Book Co.
Keown, Damien. 2005. Buddhism: Morality Without Ethics? In Buddhist Studies From India to America: Essays in Honor of Charles S. Prebish. Ed. Damien Keown. London: Routledge.
Lang, Karen. 2003. Four Illusions: Candrakīrti’s Advice to Travelers on the Bodhisattva Path. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1966. A Short History of Ethics: A History of Moral Philosophy From the Homeric Age to the Twentieth Century. New York: Touchstone.
McClintock, Sara, and Georges Dreyfus, eds. 2002. The Svātantrika-Prāsaṅgika Distinction: What Difference Does a Difference Make? Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publiccations.
Nattier, Jan. 2003. A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path According to the Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Parfit, Derek. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pye, Michael. 1978. Skilful Means: A Concept in Mahayana Buddhism. London: Duckworth.
Solomon, Robert C. 2006. The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
Sprung, Mervyn. 1979. Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way: The Essential Chapters From the Prasannapadā of Candrakīrti. Boulder, CO: Prajñā Press.
Tatz, Mark. 1994. The Skill in Means (Upāyakauśalya) Sūtra. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Wilson, Liz. 1996. Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Author Information

Amod Lele

Email: lele@bu.edu

Boston University

U.S.A.