he
Patimokkha, but by accusing himself before these heavenly Protectors
and vowing to sin no more.

Santideva lived in the seventh century[9] but tells us that he follows
the scriptures and has nothing new to say. This seems to be true for,
though his book being a manual of devotion presents its subject-matter
in a dogmatic form, its main ideas are stated and even elaborated in
the Lotus. Not only are eminent figures in the Church, such as
Sariputra and Ananda, there designated as future Buddhas, but the same
dignity is predicted wholesale for five hundred and again for two
thousand monks while in Chapter X is sketched the course to be
followed by "young men or young ladies of good family" who wish to
become Bodhisattvas.[10] The chief difference is that the
Bodhicaryavatara portrays a more spiritual life, it speaks more of
devotion, less of the million shapes that compose the heavenly host:
more of love and wisdom, less of the merits of reading particular
sutras. While rendering to it and the faith that produced it all
honour, we must remember that it is typical of the Mahayana only in
the sense that the De Imitatione Christi is typical of Roman
Catholicism, for both faiths have other sides.

Santideva's Bodhisattva, when conceiving the thought of Bodhi or
eventual supreme enlightenment to be obtained, it may be, only after
numberless births, feels first a sympathetic joy in the good actions
of all living beings. He addresses to the Buddhas a prayer which is
not a mere act of commemoration, but a request to preach the law and
to defer their entrance into Nirvana. He then makes over to others
whatever merit he may possess or acquire and offers himself and all
his possessions, moral and material, as a sacrifice for the salvation
of all beings. This on the one hand does not much exceed the limits of
_danam_ or the virtue of giving as practised by Sakyamuni in previous
births according to the Pali scriptures, but on the other it contains
in embryo the doctrine of vicarious merit and salvation through a
saviour. The older tradition admits that the future Buddha (_e.g._ in
the Vessantara birth-story) gives all that is asked from him including
life, wife and children. To consider the surrender and transfer of
merit (pattidana in Pali) as parallel is a natural though perhaps
false analogy. But the transfer of Karma is not altogether foreign to
Brahmanic thought, for it is held that a wife may share in her
husband's Karma no