"Saantideva's literary ability

[Matthew Kapstein]

Tibetan exegesis considers this to be a fixed type of
humilific -- kheng ba skyungs pa in Tibetan -- that is,
with the mangalasloka, guruvandana, etc., one of the
standard rhetorical devices used to open a Buddhist sastra.
Cf. the opening to Kamalasila's Tattvasangrahapanjika.
Sa-skya Pandita discusses all this in great detail in
theopening of his Mkhas pa la 'jug pa, and is followed
by most later Tibetan commentators. His source may be
Vasubandhu's Vyakhyayukti, though certainly he was
familiar with a wide range of works -- Buddhist and
non-Buddhist -- on Sanskrit rhetoric.
MK