Buddha Mind - Christ Mind. A Christian Commentary on Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara

Basic data for this project

Description

The present projects aims at the completion of a Christian commentary on Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara. The Bodhicaryavatara is one of the most influential and widespread classical Buddhist accounts of the Bodhisattva ideal, composed in India during the 7th or 8th century. This text provides a peculiar symbiosis of Mahayana-Buddhist ethics, devotional faith and philosophy. While it has triggered a range of contemporary discussions and has been subject to many Buddhist commentaries in the past, this is the first time that a commentary will be written from a Christian perspective. The root text of the commentary is the Sanskrit version of which - for the purpose of this commentary - Ernst Steinkellner (Austrian Academy of Sciences) has produced a fresh English translation, which is further refined as part of the commentarial analysis. The composition of transreligious scriptural commentaries is an exciting recent development in inter-faith dialogue. It provides dialogue with precision, methodological structure and a concrete foundation. Yet it also raises weighty hermeneutical issues: Is it possible to interpret the sacred text of another religious tradition in a way that makes sense to the commentator's religion without doing violence to text's original context? To the extent that transreligious commentaries succeed, they may become significant instruments of interreligious or comparative theology.