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A History of Sanskrit Literature: Classical Period, Vol. I c4.s5: 1. Aśvaghoṣa and his School

A History of Sanskrit Literature: Classical Period, Vol. I c4.s5

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English

1. Aśvaghoṣa and his School

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Fifty years ago Aśvaghoṣa was nothing more than a name, but to-day all his important works have been published, and he is recognised as the first great Kāvya-poet and precursor of Kālidāsa. Very little however, is known of his personal history except what is vouchsafed by legends¹ and what can be gathered from his works themselves. The colophons to his Kāvyas agree in describing him as a Bhikṣu or Buddhist monk of Sāketa (Ayodhyā) and as the son of Suvarṇākṣī, 'of golden eyes,' which was the name of his mother. They also add the style of Ācārya and Bhadanta, as well as of Mahākavi and Mahāvādin. As an easterner, Aśvaghoṣa's admiration of the *Rāmāyaṇa*² is explicable, while it is probable that he belonged to some such Buddhist school of eastern origin as the Mahāsāṅghika or the Bahuśrutika.³ He makes little display of purely scholastic knowledge; but the evidence of his works makes it clear that he had a considerable mastery over the technical literature which a Sanskrit poet was expected to possess, and a much wider acquaintance than most other Buddhist writers of the various branches of Brahmanical learning. His Sanskrit is not strictly faultless, but his easy command over it is undoubtedly not inferior to that of most Sanskrit writers. Everywhere great respect is shown to Brahmanical ideas and institutions, and it is not improbable that he was born a Brahman and given a Brahman's education before he went over to Buddhism. The obvious interest he shows in the theme of conversion in at least two of his works and the zeal which he evinces for his faith perhaps fortify this presumption. The Chinese tradition makes¹ Aśvaghoṣa a contemporary and spiritual counsellor of king Kaniṣka. The poet did not probably live later than the king, and it would not be wrong to put the lower limit of his date at 100 A.D. But in associating with Aśvaghoṣa the Sarvāstivādin Vibhāṣā commentary on the Abhidharma, or in naming the Vibhāṣā scholar Pārśva or his pupil Puṇyayaśas as having converted Aśvaghoṣa, the tradition, which cannot be traced further than the end of the 4th century and which shows more amiable than historical imagination, is perhaps actuated by the motive of exalting the authority of this school; for neither the date of the commentary is certain, nor can the special doctrines of the Sarvāstivādins be definitely traced in the unquestioned works of Aśvaghoṣa. That he was a follower of Hīnayāna and took his stand on earlier dogmatism admits of little doubt, but he was less of a scholastic philosopher than an earnest believer, and his emphasis on personal love and devotion to the Buddha perhaps prepared the way for Mahāyāna Bhakti, of which he is enumerated as one of the patriarchs. It is not necessary for us to linger over the question of his scholarship or religion;² but it should be noted that, while his wide scholarship informs his poems with a richer content, it seldom degenerates into mere pedantry, and the sincerity of his religious convictions imparts life and enthusiasm to his impassioned utterances, and redeems them from being mere dogmatic treatises or literary exercises.

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¹ A legendary biography of Aśvaghoṣa was translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva between 401 and 409 A.D.; extracts from it in W. Wassiljew, *Der Buddhismus*, St. Petersburg, 1860, p. 231 f. Cf. *JA*, 1908, II, p. 65 for Chinese authorities on the Aśvaghoṣa legend.

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² On the poet's indebtedness to the *Rāmāyaṇa*, which Cowell and Johnston deal with in the introductions to their respective editions of the *Buddha-carita*, see also A. Gawroński, *Studies about the Sanskrit-Buddhist Lit.*, Krakow 1919, pp. 27-40; C. W. Gurner in *JASB*, XXII, 1927, p. 347 f.; Winternitz, *HIL*, I, p. 512 f.

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³ See Johnston, *op. cit.*, pt. II, indrod, xxxi f.

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¹ On Chinese and other Buddhist sources concerning Aśvaghoṣa, see S. Lévi in *JA*, 1892, p. 201f.; 1896, II, p. 444 f.; 1908, II, p. 57 f.; 1928, II, p. 193; M. Anesaki in *ERE*, II, 1909, p. 159 f. and reff.; T. Suzuki in the work cited below. On Kaniṣka's date, see Winternitz, *HIL*, II, App. V, pp. 611-14 for a summary of different views.

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² The question is discussed by Johnston in his introduction. Some doctrines peculiar to Mahāyāna have been traced in Aśvaghoṣa's genuine works, but his date is too early for anything other than primitive Mahāyāna. The recommendation of Yogācāra in *Saundarānanda* XIV, 18 and XX, 68 need not refer to the Yogācāra school, but perhaps alludes only to the practice of Yoga in general.

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To later Buddhism Aśvaghoṣa is a figure of romance, and the Chinese and Tibetan translations of Sanskrit works, made in later times, ascribe to him a number of religious or philosophical writings, some of which belong to developed Mahāyāna.¹ In the absence of Sanskrit originals, it is impossible to decide Aśvaghoṣa's authorship; but since they have not much literary pretensions it is not necessary for us to discuss the question. Among these doubtful works, the *Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda-śāstra*, which attempts a synthesis of Vijñāna-vāda and Madhyamika doctrines, has assumed importance from its being translated into English,² under the title 'Aśvaghoṣa's Discourse on the Awakening of Faith,' from the second Chinese version made about 700 A.D.; but the internal evidence of full-grown Mahāyāna doctrine in the work itself puts Aśvaghoṣa's authorship out of the question. Another work, entitled *Vajrasūcī* 'the Diamond-needle,'³ a clever polemic on Brahmanical caste, has also been published, but it is not mentioned among Aśvaghoṣa's works by the Chinese pilgrim Yi-tsing (7th century) nor by the *Bstan-ḥgyur*, and it shows little of Aśvaghoṣa's style or mentality; the Chinese translation, which was made between 973 and 981 A.D., perhaps rightly ascribes it to Dharmakīrti. Of greater interest is the *Gaṇḍī-stotra-gāthā*, a small poem of twenty-nine stanzas, composed mostly in the Sragdharā metre, the Sanskrit text of which has been restored⁴ and edited. It is in praise of the Gaṇḍī, the Buddhist monastery gong, consisting of a long symmetrical piece of wood, and of the religious message which its sound is supposed to carry when beaten with a short wooden club. The poem is marked by some metrical skill, but one of its stanzas (st. 20) shows that it was composed in Kashmir at a much later time.¹

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¹ A full list is given by F. W. Thomas in *Kvs*, introd., p. 26 f.

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² By T. Suzuki, Chicago 1900. Takakusu states that the earlier catalogue of Chinese texts omits the name of Aśvaghoṣa as the author of this work. The question of several Aśvaghoṣas is discussed by Suzuki and Anesaki, cited above. On this work see Winternitz *HIL*, II, pp. 361-62 and reff.

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³ Ed. and trs. by Weber, *Über die Vajrasūcī*, in Abhandl. d. Berliner Akad., 1859, pp. 205-64, where the problem of authorship is discussed.

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⁴ By A. Von Stael-Holstein, in Bibl. Buddh., no. XV, St. Petersburg 1913, and re-edited by E. H. Johnston in *IA*, 1933, pp. 61-70, where the authorship of Aśvaghoṣa has been questioned. Cf. F. W. Thomas in *JRAS*, 1914, p. 752 f.

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¹ A work, entitled *Tridaṇḍa-mālā*, is ascribed to Aśvaghoṣa in *JBORS*, XXIV, 1938, pp. 157-60, but Johnston, *ibid*, XXV, 1939, p. 11 f. disputes it.

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The next apocryphal work is the *Sūtrālaṃkāra*,² over the authorship of which there has been a great deal of controversy.³ The Chinese translation of the work, made by Kumārajīva about 405 A.D. assigns it to Aśvaghoṣa; but fragments of the same work in Sanskrit were discovered in Central Asia and identified by H. Lüders,⁴ who maintains that the author was Kumāralāta, probably a junior contemporary of Aśvaghoṣa, and that the work bore in Sanskrit the title of *Kalpanā-maṇḍitikā* or *Kalpanā-laṃkṛtikā*. As the name indicates, it is a collection of moral tales and legends, told after the manner of the Jatakas and Avadanas in prose and verse, but in the style of the ornate Kavya. Some of the stories, such as those of Dīrghāyus and Śibi, are old, but others clearly inculcate Buddha-bhakti in the spirit of the Mahāyāna. The work illustrates the ability to turn the tale into an instrument of Buddhist propaganda, but it also displays wide culture, mentions the two Indian Epics, the Sāṃkhya and Vaiśeṣika systems, the Jaina doctrines and the law-book of Manu, and achieves considerable literary distinction. It is unfortunate that the Sanskrit text exists only in fragments. Yuan Chwang informs us that Kumāralāta was the founder of the Sautrāntika school and came from Taxila; it is not surprising, therefore, that the work pays respect to the Sarvāstivādins, from whom the Sautrāntikas originated, or that some of its stories can be traced in the works of the school. In two stories (nos. 14 and 31), Kaniṣka appears as a king who has already passed away; the work, apparently written some time after Kaniṣka's death, cannot, therefore, be dated earlier than the 2nd century A.D.¹

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² Translated into French on the Chinese version of Kumārajīva, by Ed. Huber, Paris 1908.

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³ For references see Tomomatsu in *JA*, 1931, II, p. 135 f. Also L. de la Vallée Poussin, *Vijñaptimātrāsiddhi*, pp. 221-24.

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⁴ *Bruchstücke der Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā des Kumāralāta* in *Kongi Preuss Turfan-Expeditionen*, *Kleinere Sanskrit-Texte* II, Leipzig 1926. The fragments are valuable, but unfortunately they are too few in number, and the work is still to be judged on the basis of the Chinese version. Some scholars hold that Aśvaghoṣa was the real author, and Kumāralāta only refashioned the work; but it is now generally agreed that Aśvaghoṣa had nothing to do with its composition.

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¹ If, however, Harivarman, a pupil of Kumāralāta, was a contemporary of Vasubandhu, then Kumāralāta could not have been a younger contemporary of Aśvaghoṣa, but should be dated not earlier than the 3rd century A.D.

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The three works, which are known for certain to be Aśvaghoṣa's, are; the *Buddha-carita*, the *Saundarananda* and the *Śāriputra-prakaraṇa*; and his fame as a great Sanskrit poet rests entirely on these. The first, in its original form of twenty-eight cantos, known to Yi-tsing and to the Chinese and Tibetan versions, is complete Mahākāvya on the life of the Buddha, which begins with his birth and closes with an account of the war over the relics, the first Council, and the reign of Aśoka. In Sanskrit² only cantos two to thirteen exist in their entirety, together with about three quarters of the first and the first quarter of the fourteenth (up to st. 31), carrying the narrative down to the Buddha's temptation, defeat of Māra and his enlightenment. It is the work of a real poet who, actuated by intense devotion to the Buddha and the truth of his doctrine, has studied the scripture and is careful to use the authoritative sources open to him, but who has no special inclination to the marvellous and the miraculous, and reduces the earlier extravagant and chotic legends to the measure and form of the Kāvya. Aśvaghoṣa does not depart in essentials from the received tradition, but he succeeds in infusing into his well conceived and vivid narrative the depth of his religious feeling and the spontaneity of his poetic emotion. Not unworthily praised is the skilful picture he draws of the young prince Sarvārthasiddhi's journey through the city, of the throng of fair women who hasten to watch him pass by, of the hateful spectacle of disease, old age and death which he encounters on the way, of the womanly blandishments and the political arguments of wisdom set forth by the family priest, which seek to divert the prince's mind from brooding thoughts of resignation, as well as of the famous night-scene of sleeping women, who in their moment of unconsciousness present all the loathsome signs of human misery and thereby hasten the flight of the prince from the palace. The requirement of a battle-scene in the Kāvya is fulfilled by the pleasingv ariation of the spirited description of the Buddha's fight with Māra and his hosts.¹ The work is, therefore, not a bare recital of incident, nor is it a dry and dogmatic exposition of Buddhist doctrine, but the Buddha-legend is conceived in the spirit of the Kāvya in respect of narrative, diction and imagery, and the poet's flame of faith makes the best lines of the poem quiver with the needed glow.

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² Ed. E. B. Cowell, Oxford 1893, containing four additional cantos by Amṛtānanda, a Nepalese Pandit of the 19th century, who records at the end that he wrote the supplement in 1830 A.D., because he could not find a complete manuscript of the text. Also trs. into English by Cowell in *SBE*, vol. 49; into German by C. Cappeller, Jena 1922; into Italian by C Formichi, Bari 1912. Re-edited more critically, and translated into English, by E. H. Johnston in 2 vols., Calcutta 1936 (Panjab Univ. Orient. Publ. Nos. 31-32), which may be consulted for bibliography of other Indian editions and for critical and exegetical contributions to the subject by various scholars. Johnston remarks: "The textual tradition of the extant portion is bad, and a sound edition is only made possible by comparison with the Tibetan and Chinese translations." The Tibetan text, with German translation, under the title *Das Leben des Buddha von Aśvaghoṣa*, is given by F. Weller, in two parts, Leipzig 1926, 1928.

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¹ Parallelisms between Aśvaghoṣa and Kālidāsa in some of these passages, not only in ideals but also in diction and imagery, have been set forth in detail in Nandargikar's introduction to his edition of *Raghu-vaṁśa* (3rd ed., Bombay 1897, pp. 163-96); but the argument based thereon that Kālidāsa was earlier and Aśvaghoṣa imitated him has not found general support and is very unlikely.

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The *Saundarananda*,² all the eighteen cantos of which are preserved in Sanskrit, is connected also with the story of the Buddha; but its actual theme is the conversion of his reluctant half-brother, Nanda, nicknamed Sundara for his handsome appearance. Nothing more than a mention of the fact of conversion is found in the *Mahāvagga* and the *Nidāna-kathā*; and the subject is perhaps too slender to support an extensive poem. But the opportunity is taken, in the earlier part of the poem, to expand the legend with the proper Kāvya-embellishments, and in the latter part, to give expression at length to the poet's religious ideas and convictions. The first six cantos, therefore, describe the mythical foundation of Kapilavastu, its king, the birth of the Buddha and Nanda, the latter's love for his wife Sundarī, the forcible conversion of Nanda to the life of a monk, which he intensely dislikes, his conflict of feelings, and Sundarī's lament for her lost husband. All this is pictured skilfully in the manner and diction of the Kāvya, and possesses considerable narrative interest; but in the rest of the poem there is not much of description or narration except the account of Nanda's ascent to heaven and yearning for Apsarases. Entire space is, therefore, devoted to an impassioned exposition of the evils of pride and lust, the vanities of the world and the joys of enlightenment. Here, more than in the imaginative presentation of the Buddha-legend, Aśvaghoṣa the preacher, no doubt, gets the upper hand of Aśvaghoṣa the poet; but in this very conflict between his poetic temperament and religious passion, which finds delight in all that is delightful and yet discards it as empty and unsatisfying, lies the secret of the spontaneity and forcefulness which forms the real appeal of his poetry. It is not merely the zeal of the convert but the conviction of the importance of what he has to say that often makes him scorn mere verbal polish and learned ostentation and speak with an overmastering directness, the very truth and enthusiasm of which sharpen his gift of pointed phrasing, balance his sentences and add a new zest to his emotional earnestness.

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² Discovered and edited by Haraprasad Shastri, Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1910; critically re-edited and translated into English by E. H. Johnston, Oxford Univ. Press, 1928, 1932, which gives full bibliography. In spite of the richer content and wider interest of the *Buddha-carita*, Johnston is of opinion that "the handling of the *Saundarānanda* is altogether more mature and assured than that of the *Buddha-carita*"; contra Winternitz, *HIL*, II, p. 262 note.

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In this respect Aśvaghoṣa's poetry lacks the technical finish and subtlety of the later Kāvya; but it possesses freshness of feeling in the simplicity and nobility born of passionate faith. Aśvaghoṣa is fully conversant with the Brahmanical and Buddhistic learning of his day, while his metrical skill and use of rhetorical ornaments betoken his familiarity with the poetic art ;¹ but the inherent contrast between the poet and the artist, on the one hand, and the scholar and the preacher, on the other, often results in strange inequalities of matter and manner. At the conclusion of his poems, Aśvaghoṣa declares that he is writing for a larger public, and not merely for a learned audience, for the attainment of peace and not for the display of skill in the Kāvya. The question, therefore, whether he belongs to this or that school of thought, or whether he employs this or that metre or ornament in his poems is immaterial ; what is material to recognise is that religion is not his theme, but religious emotion, which supplies the necessary impetus and evolves its own form of expression without making a fetish of mere rhetoric or mere dogma. Aśvaghoṣa is a poet by nature, a highly cultivated man by training, and a deeply religious devotee by conviction. This unique combination is often real and vital enough to lift his poetry from the dead level of the commonplace and the conventional, and impart to it a genuine emotional tone which is rare in later poetry. What is most pleasing in his work to modern taste is his power of combining a sense of reality and poetry with the skill of art and scholarship. His narrative, therefore, is never dull, his choice of incident and arrangement never incoherent, his diction seldom laboured and his expression rarely devoid of elegant simplicity. If he is not a finished artist in the sense in which his successors are, nor even a great poet capable of great things, his poetic inspiration is genuine, and he never speaks in a tiresome falsetto. If his poetry has not the stress and discipline of chiselled beauty, it has the pliability and promise of unrefined form ; it has the sincerity and the throb, if not the perfectly ordered harmony, of full-grown music.

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¹ On Aśvaghoṣa as scholar and artist, see Johnston, *op. cit.*, p. II, pp. xliv-lxxix.

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Aśvaghoṣa’s versatility is indicated by his third work,² a Prakaraṇa or nine-act drama, entitled *Śāriputra-prakaraṇa* (or *Śāradvatīputra*), of which only fragments on palm leaf were discovered in Central Asia and a few passages restored by Lüders. Fortunately the colophon exists, and the question of authorship and name of the work is beyond doubt. Its theme is, again, an act of conversion connected with the Buddha, namely, that of Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana, but the fragments give us little idea of the way in which the story, well-known from such older sources as the *Mahāvagga*, was handled. In having a Prakrit-speaking Vidūṣaka as one of the characters and in conforming to the requirements regarding division into acts, use of literary Prakrits,¹ ornamental metrical excursions² and other details, the fragments, however, afford clear testimony that the method and technique of a fairly developed Sanskrit drama³ were already established in the 1st or 2nd century A.D. This presumption is confirmed also by the fragments of two other plays,⁴ which were discovered with the remains of *Śāriputra-prakaraṇa*, but which bear no testimony of authorship and may or may not have been written by Aśvaghoṣa. The first has for its theme a Buddhist allegory, of which the details are not clear, although a whole leaf of the manuscript has ben recovered. It has Kīrti 'Fame,' Dhṛti 'Firmness' and Buddhi 'Wisdom' as characters, and apparently foreshadows such allegorical plays as Kṛṣṇamiśra's *Prabodha-candrodaya* of a much later time. The Buddha himself appears, as in the drama described above, and all the characters, so far as the fragments go, speak Sanskrit. In having real, as well as allegorical, figures, it resembles more the *Caitanya-candrodaya* of Kavikarṇapūra in its manner of treatment, but no definite conclusion is possible. The other play appears to have been also intended for religious edification, but from what remains of it we may infer that it was a social drama of middle class life of the type of the *Mṛcchakaṭika*. It concerns a young voluptuary, called simply the Nayaka and probably named Somadatta, and his mistress Magadhavatī, apparently a courtesan converted to Buddhism. There are also a Prince (Bhaṭṭidalaka), an ever-hungry Viduṣaka, named Kaumudagandha, a maid-servant, and a Duṣṭa or Rogue. The fragments are few in number and not consecutive, and it is difficult to make out the story. But in view of the uncertainty of the origin and antiquity of the Sanskrit Drama, these specimens, which belong probably to the same age, are highly interesting; for they reveal the drama in its first appearance in a relatively perfected form, and clearly indicate that its origin should antedate the Christian era.

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² H. Lüders, Das Śāriputraprakaraṇa, ein Drama des Aśvaghoṣa, in *Sitzungsberichte d Berliner Akad.*, 1911, p. 388 f.

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¹ On the Prakrits employed in this and the following plays, see Lüders in the works cited, and Keith, *HSL*, pp. 85-89. The Prakrit is literary and shows the influence of Sanskrit.

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² The metres employed (besides Śloka) are the usual classical ones; Āryā, Upajāti, Śālinī, Vaṁśasthavila, Vasantatilaka, Mālinī, Śikhariṇī, Hariṇī, Suvadanā, Śārdūlavikrīḍita and Sragdharā.

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³ *Contra* Sten Konow, *Indische Drama*, Berlin and Leipzig 1920, p. 50, but the grounds are weak.

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⁴ H. Lüders, *Bruchstücke buddhistischer Dramen*, Kongl. Preuss. Turfan-Expeditionen, Kleinere Sankrit-Texte I, Berlin 1911, The question of authorship is undecided; see Johnston, *op. cit.*, pp. xx-xxii.

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From the literary point of view, Aśvaghoṣa's achievement, we have seen, is marked not so much by crudity and primitiveness as by simplicity and moderation in language and style; it is artistic but not in the extravagant manner of the later Kāvya. Its matter and poetic quality, therefore, more appealing than its manner and artistic effect. This is certainly different from the later taste and standard of verse-making; and it is not surprising that with the exception of Kālidāsa, who is nearer his time, Aśvaghoṣa exercised little influence on later Sanskrit poets,¹ although the exception itself is a sure indication of the essential quality of his literary effort. Despite their religious zeal, the literary works of Aśvaghoṣa could not have been approved whole-heartedly also by the learned monks for his freedom of views and leaning towards Brahmanical learning.

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¹ The only quotation from Aśvaghoṣa in Alaṁkāra literature occurs in Rājaśekhara's *Kāvya-mīmāṁsā*, ed. Gaekward's O. S., p. 18 (=*Buddha-c.*, viii. 25). For other quotations see Johnston, *op. cit.*, pp. lxxix-lxxx, and F. W. Thomas, *Kvs*, introd., p. 29.

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With the Buddhist writers of the Kāvya, on the other hand, Aśvaghoṣa was deservedly popular; and some of their works were modelled so closely on those of Aśvaghoṣa that they were indiscriminately assigned to him in later times, with the result that the authors themselves came to be identified with him.¹

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¹ Concerning the identifications, see F. W. Thomas in *Album Kern*, Leiden 1903, pp. 405-08 and *IA*, 1903, pp 345-60; also see *ERE*, VIII (1915), p 495f.

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Of the successors of Aśvaghoṣa, who are to be taken into account, not because they were Buddhists but because their works possess a wider literary appeal, we have already spoken of Kumāralāta, one of whose works is ascribed by the Chinese tradition to Aśvaghoṣa himself. Some of the poems² of Mātṛceṭa have likewise been attributed to Aśvaghoṣa by the Tibetan tradition, one of whose famous chroniclers, Tāranātha being of opinion that Mātṛceṭa is another name for Aśvaghoṣa! Of the twelve works ascribed to Mātṛceṭa in Tibetan and one in Chinese, most of which are in the nature of Stotras and some belonging distinctly to Mahāyāna, only fragments *Śatapañcāśataka-stotra*³ and *Catuḥśataka-stotra*,⁴ or panegyric of one hundred and fifty and four hundred stanzas respectively, are recovered in Sanskrit. Both these works are simple devotional poems in Ślokas. They are praised by Yi-tsing, to whom Mātṛceṭa is already a famous poet, and who himself is said to have translated the first work into Chinese; but they do not appear to possess much literary merit. That Mātṛceṭa, in spite of his name occurring distinctly in Yi-tsing and in the inscriptions was confused with Aśvaghoṣa, may have been due to the fact that he belonged to the same school and was probably a contemporary. A Tibetan version of another work, called *Mahārāja-kanika-lekha*, in eighty-five stanzas, ascribed to Mātṛcitra, has been translated into English by F. W. Thomas,¹ who is probably right in thinking that Mātṛcitra is identical with Mātṛceṭa, and that king Kanika of the Kuśa dynasty addressed in this epistle of religious admonition is no other than the Kuṣāṇa king Kaniṣka.²

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² For a list of the works see F. W. Thomas, *Kvs*, introd., pp. 26-28.

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³ Fragments published by S. Lévi in *JA*, XVI, 1910, pp. 433-56 and L de la Vallée Poussin in *JRAS*, 1911, pp. 759-77. Siegling is reported to have reconstructed about two-thirds of the Sanskrit text; see Winternitz, *HIL*, II, p. 271 note. Both these works exist in Tibetan and Chinese.

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⁴ The work is called Varṇanārha-varṇana in the Tibetan version and Central Asian fragments. For a translation of this text from Tibetan, see F. W. Thomas is *IA*, XXIV, 1905, pp. 145-163.

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¹ *IA*, XXII, 1903, p. 345 f. The epistle is supposed to be Mātṛceitra's reply declining king Kanika's invitation to his court. The vogue of such epistolary exhortation is borne out by Nāgārjuna's *Suhṛllekha* and Candragomin's *Śiṣya-lekha*.

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² But *contra* S. C. Vidyabhusan in *JASB*, 1910, p. 477 f.

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Of greater interest than the rather meagre works of Mātṛceṭa is the *Jātaka-mālā*³ of Ārya Śūra, which consists of a free but elegant Sanskrit rendering, in prose and verse, of thirty-four⁴ selected legends from the Pali *Jātakas* and the *Cariyā-piṭaka*, illustrating the Paramitas or perfections of a Bodhisattva. Although sometimes marked by exaggeration, the tales are edifying. They were apparently composed for supplying ready illustrations to religious discourses, but the interest is more than religious. The work reveals a close study of Aśvaghoṣa's manner, and is inspired by the same idea of conveying in polished, but not too highly artificial, diction and noble doctrine of universal compassion ; and it is not surprising, therefore, that the author should be identified sometimes with Aśvaghoṣa. The attractive form in which the old stories are retold in the Kavya-style shows that it was meant for a wider but cultivated audience, and we have Yi-tsing's testimony, confirmed by the existence of Chinese and Tibetan translations, that the work was at one time popular in India and outside. Ārya Śūra's date is unknown, but as another work of his⁵ was translated into Chinese in 434 A.D., he cannot be dated latter than the 4th century A.D.¹

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³ Ed. H. Kern in Harvard O. S. 1891 ; trs. J. S. Speyer in Sacred Books of the Buddhists, Oxford University Press, 1895. The title is a generic term for various poets have written 'garlands' of *Jātakas*.

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⁴ The Chinese version contains only 14 stories.

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⁵ For a list of other works ascribed to Ārya Śūra by Chinese and Tibetan traditions, see F. W. Thomas, *Kvs*, introd., p. 26 f.

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¹ We do not take here into account the works of other and later Buddhist writers, such as the *Catuḥ-śataka* of Āryadeva, the *Suhṛllekha* of Nāgārjuna, the *Śiṣya-lekha* and *Lokānanda-nāṭaka* of Candragomin, or the *Bodhicaryāvatāra* of Śāntideva, for they contribute more to doctrine or philosophy than to literature.

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