Did Śāntideva Destroy the Bodhisattva Path?

The article opens with the ethical question: should we be concerned about the welfare of others, and if so, why? Wetlesen situates this question within Śāntideva’s importance for the bodhisattva ideal and then introduces Williams’s controversial claim that Śāntideva’s reasoning undermines altruism. The early sections clarify different concepts of altruism, egoism, and personhood, contrasting reductive Abhidharma atomism with non-reductive Madhyamaka interpretations of the person as a conventional reality. The main body analyzes Williams’s readings of BCA 8:101–103 and 8:97–98, then develops an alternative interpretation based on interpersonal holism. Wetlesen gives special attention to Śāntideva’s meditations on the equality of self and others and the exchange of self and others, arguing that these practices aim to reshape the motivational structure of the bodhisattva. The article concludes by defending Śāntideva as a thinker whose ethics depends not merely on formal logic, but on meditative transformation, compassion, and a widened conception of selfhood.