The History of Buddhist Thought c23.35

c23.35

Śāntideva’s *Bodhicaryāvatāra*, “entrance into training for enlightenment,” has been called the finest poem in Buddhism. It is remarkable not merely as literature, but most of all in its personal aspect of the revelation of a deeply religious mind. He is filled with the thought that he must strive through unnumbered births to acquire the virtues through which in the presence of the Buddhas he prays to become a tranquillizer of all the pains of all beings. There is a system of worship for bodhisattvas on which his prayers seem to be based ¹: (1) Praise of the Buddhas, (2) acts of worship, (3) confession of sin, (4) praise of virtue, (5) exhorting Buddhas to preach and asking them to delay their Nirvāṇa, (6) rise of the thought of enlightenment, (7) transference of his own merits for the benefit of other beings. His confession thus begins: