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Śāntideva

Śāntideva

? · Saurāṣṭra

fl. c. 8th c. CE; dates traditional, life-details thin

Śāntideva was a Madhyamaka monk-poet of roughly the 8th century CE, traditionally a member of the great monastic university of Nālandā, and the author of the Bodhicaryāvatāra ('Entering the Bodhisattva's Way of Life')—one of the most beloved works on the bodhisattva path, including its influential 'exchange of self and other,' later a root of the Tibetan lojong (mind-training) tradition. He is a genuine historical author, though the details of his life are thin and largely traditional.

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Saurāṣṭra

What they did here

Birthplace of Śāntideva.

About Saurāṣṭra

Saurāṣṭra is the peninsular region of Gujarat in western India (the Kathiawar peninsula). According to the Tibetan historians Butön and Tāranātha, the eighth-century Madhyamaka master Śāntideva — author of the Bodhicaryāvatāra — was born a prince of Saurāṣṭra before renouncing the throne and entering the monastic life at Nālandā.

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