Shantideva (Sanskrit: Śāntideva; ; ; ; ) was an 8th-century CE Indian philosopher, Buddhist monk, poet, and scholar at the mahavihara of Nalanda. He was an adherent of the Mādhyamaka philosophy of Nāgārjuna. Abhayadatta Sri also lists Shantideva as one of the eighty-four mahasiddhas and is known as Bhusuku Pa (布苏固巴).
Two works of Shantideva are extant, the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra and the Śikṣāsamuccaya, both of which were written with the intention of being training manuals for one who intends to follow the path of the bodhisattva. The Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra in particular was the subject of both Indian and Tibetan commentaries during the period it was written and has also received large amounts of attention from both academics and lay practitioners in recent years as well including a commentary written by the 14th Dalai Lama.
Biography
There are two sources of Shantideva's life composed by the Tibetan historians; Buton Rinchen Drub and Taranatha. Recent scholarship has also brought to light a short Sanskrit language biography of Shantideva in a 14th-century Nepalese manuscript.
According to one source, Shantideva was born in the Saurastra region (in modern-day Gujarat), son of a King Kalyanavarman, and went by the name Śantivarman. But Vibhūticandra's Bodhicaryāvatāratātparyapañjikā Viśeṣadyotanī, the earliest extant biography of Shantideva, details that he was born in Southern India, in the city of Sringara, and his father was a King Mañjuśrīvarman. As per Vibhūticandra, Shantideva ran away from home on the advice of his mother and travelled to Bengal and then Magadha. He served in the court of a Magadhan king and after leaving, arrived in Nalanda. During his stay in Nalanda, he was given the nickname, Bhūsuku due to his practice of Samadhi.