 Scholars of Indian history before the second millennium are often frustrated by our lack of reliable and precise chronological information; and so it is for the dates of Śāntideva. One crucial piece of information we do have is that another Indian author, Śāntarakṣita, quotes a passage from Śāntideva in a text that must have been composed by 763 CE. We may conclude that Śāntideva must have lived and written before that date, and so that his life would likely have occurred in the late seventh to the mid-eighth centuries CE. This was a period during which Buddhism was still quite popular in North India, but had entered a phase of decline from which it would not be able to recover. Nevertheless, highly original and valuable intellectual and spiritual developments continued to occur within the Buddhist tradition at this time. 