大卫·埃克尔

Bhāviveka菩萨道上

I am working to complete an edition, annotated translation, and critical study of a key but often overlooked Indian Buddhist text on the path that leads a bodhisattva or “future Buddha” to the achievement of Buddhahood. The text consists of the first three chapters of Bhāviveka’s “Heart of the Middle Way” (madhyamakahṛdayakārikāḥ), together with a prose commentary known as “The Flame of Reason” (tarkajvālā). This three-chapter “introduction” to the bodhisattva path was the model in style and substance for some of the most important later Indian accounts of the bodhisattva path, including the “Introduction to the Middle Way” (madhyamakāvatāra) by Candrakīrti and the “Introduction to the Bodhisattva Practice” (bodhi[sattva]caryāvatāra) by Śāntideva (both eighth-century). The publication of Bhāviveka’s “introduction” in a single volume is meant to give a solid critical and interpretative foundation to the study of Mahāyāna literature about the path, not only in these other influential “introductions” but in the wider genre of bodhisattva literature throughout the Buddhist world. The intention will be to publish this book as a companion volume to my edition, translation, and critical study of chapters 4 and 5 of the same text in Bhāviveka and His Buddhist Opponents (Harvard Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, 2008).