The Way of the Bodhisattva , composed by the monk and scholar ÅÄ ntideva in eighth-century India, is a Buddhist treatise in verse that beautifully and succinctly lays out the theory and practice of the Mahayana path of a bodhisattva. Over one thousand years after ÅÄ ntideva's composition, KÃ1/4nzang Sönam (1823-1905) produced the most extensive commentary on the Way of the Bodhisattva ever written. This book is the first English translation of KÃ1/4nzang Sönam's overview of ÅÄ ntideva's notoriously difficult ninth chapter on wisdom. The ninth chapter of the Way of the Bodhisattva is philosophically very rich but forbiddingly technical, and can only be read well with a good commentary. KÃ1/4nzang Sönam's commentary offers a unique and complete introduction to the view of PrÄ saá .gika-Madhyamaka, the summit of Buddhist philosophy in Tibet, as articulated by Tsongkhapa. It brings ÅÄ ntideva's text, and Tsongkhapa's interpretation of PrÄ saá .gika-Madhyamaka, into conversation with a vast Buddhist literature from India and Tibet.

By articulating the integral relationship between emptiness and interdependence, this text formulates a sustained and powerful argument for emptiness as a metaphysical basis of bodhisattva ethics. This volume makes the ninth chapter accessible to English-speaking teachers and students of the Way of the Bodhisattva .