Shantideva is an outstanding Indian thinker of the 8th century, the author of famous works on the practices of the bodhisattva: “Entering the path of the bodhisattva” (Bodhicharya-avatara) and “Collection of practices” (Sikshasamucchaya). The Dalai Lama ranks Shantideva among the seventeen greatest pandits (scholar-philosophers) of the ancient Indian monastic university of Nalanda.

“Bodhicharya Avatara” and “Sikshasamucchaya” are recommended to be studied together, since those topics that are presented in a concise form in the first book are explained in detail in the second, and vice versa. The teachings we find in these works should be put into practice to benefit all living beings..His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIV