 The BCA and the ŚS contain some of the best poetry and some of the most accessible and powerful teachings on no-self and emptiness that the Indian Buddhist tradition ever produced. In several ways, these texts are unique. No other premodern text contains such interesting general reflections about how Buddhist teachings on how to live relate to each other and form a coherent whole. The Ownerless Suffering Argument has no exact parallel elsewhere in Indian literature. No other Indian text grappled with the problem of free will as carefully and as seriously as the BCA. And few, if any, Buddhist writers have ever been as skilled as Śāntideva at evoking a remarkable range of emotions in the reader. To advance his spiritual goals, he crafted passages that are remarkably effective, even today, at arousing disgust, fear, remorse, determination, altruism, generosity, lovingkindness, and compassion. For anyone who wishes to understand the philosophical teachings and spiritual aspirations of the mature Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition, and to appreciate why these teachings were convincing and these aspirations compelling to many premodern Indians and Tibetans, there is no better source than the works of Śāntideva.