 Numerous other passages in the BCA and the ŚS can be, and have been, read as providing additional evidence for consequentialism as a crucial commitment and, indeed, as a central message of these texts. Several of these concern the issue of when it is acceptable to infringe what would normally be binding rules of Buddhist moral discipline. Several important Mahāyāna texts that preceded Śāntideva, such as the Sūtra on Skillful Means (Tatz 1994) and Asaṅga’s Chapter on Moral Discipline (Tatz 1986), had explained that particular rules and precepts of moral discipline in the Mahāyāna were intended to be flexible, so that they could permissibly be broken under certain special circumstances without generating any unfavorable karmic consequences. Śāntideva appears to have reflected carefully on these teachings, developed their implications and explored their theoretical basis. His position on the flexibility of the rules is stated in full generality at BCA V.84: “Even what is proscribed is permitted for a compassionate person who sees it will be of benefit” (C&amp;S: 41). In various passages scattered through the ŚS, Śāntideva explains how this general perspective works as regards a number of specific kinds of normally impermissible actions, such as theft (ŚS 133), sexual misconduct (ŚS 166–67), and giving people alcohol and weapons (ŚS 271). In each case, Śāntideva’s view is that when an action that is usually harmful occurs under special circumstances that will lead it to have good consequences, and when the agent has a sufficiently pure compassionate motivation to benefit others, it is permissible. Similar reasoning is found at ŚS 144–45, where Śāntideva examines the circumstances under which not giving something away is the appropriate choice for a bodhisattva; these are characterized in terms of the undesirable consequences that would result from the gift. 