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A History of Sanskrit Literature c10.s1: 1. Açvaghoṣa's Works

A History of Sanskrit Literature c10.s1

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English

1. Açvaghoṣa's Works

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THE deplorable darkness which still envelops early India renders it impossible to establish with certainty the date of Açvaghoṣa, famous alike as a poet and as a philosopher. Tradition unquestionably makes him a protégé of the famous Kaniṣka, but the matter is complicated by the fact that if the *Sūtrālaṃkāra*¹ is his, he tells two stories in which Kaniṣka's reign seems to be referred to as in the past; this may be explained either on the theory that Kaniṣka died before him, which does not accord with tradition, or on the view that the stories are interpolated in whole or as regards the name, or that there was an earlier Kaniṣka; again an inscription² held to belong to the time of Kaniṣka mentions an Açvaghoṣarāja who has been temerariously identified with the poet. Assuming the validity of the tradition despite these difficulties, the date of Açvaghoṣa would fall to be determined by that of Kaniṣka, for whom *c.* A.D. 100³ still seems a just estimate. Tradition also tells that he was originally a Brahmin, that he first adhered to the Sarvāstivāda school of Buddhism, but was attracted by the doctrine of the saving grace of faith in the Buddha, and became one of the forerunners of the Mahāyāna school. I-tsing, who travelled in India in A.D. 671–95, refers to him as one of the great teachers of the past, and asserts that a collection of his works was still studied in his time. From the colophons of his own works we learn that his mother was named Suvarṇākṣī and that his home was Sāketa, while he is given the style of Ācārya and Bhadanta.

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¹ Nos. 14 and 31 (Huber's trans., Paris, 1908). Cf. Lévi, *JA.* 1896, ii. 444 ff.; Kimura, *IHQ.* i. 417. Kumāralāta (*c.* 150) is more probable.

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² *EI.* viii. 171; S. Ch. Vidyabhusana (POCP. 1919, I. xxxiii ff.) puts Kaniṣka, patron of Açvaghoṣa, about A. D. 320.

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³ Cf. Smith, EHI. pp. 272 ff.; Foucher, *L'Art Gréco-Bouddhique*, ii. 484 ff., 506 ff., who finds in the Çaka epoch merely the beginning of the fifth century of the Maurya epoch, placing Kaniṣka *c.* A. D. 81. Cf. D. R. Sahni, JRAS. 1924, pp. 399 ff.

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Whether the *Mahāyānaçraddhotpāda*, a famous text-book of early Mahāyāna views, or the *Vajrasūcī*, an able and bitter attack on the Brahmanical caste system, are rightly ascribed to Açvaghoṣa need not be discussed, and his dramas are preserved only in fragments, which reveal little of his poetic skill.¹ Of the songs for which he was renowned the *Gaṇḍīstotragāthā* ² displays great metrical skill and attests his comprehension of the power of music; it is an effort to describe in words the religious message carried to the hearts of men by the sounds produced by beating a long strip of wood with a short club. Of later authorship is the *Sūtrālaṃkāra* or *Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā*, which unhappily is preserved only in a fragmentary condition in Sanskrit, though Huber has translated into French the Chinese version of A.D. 405. The wide culture of the writer displays itself in his allusion to the Bhāratan epic³ and the *Rāmāyaṇa*, the Sāṃkhya and Vaiçeṣika philosophies, and Jain tenets, while in the tales he exhibits himself as a fervent believer in the doctrine of the saving power of worship of the Buddha. The collection is made up of tales, in the main already current in literature still preserved, inculcating the Buddhist faith; many are attractive, even pathetic, but the doctrine of devotion carries the author to strange results, as in the tale of the sinner who never in his life did one good deed, but because in deadly terror of his life from attack by a tiger he uttered the salutation, 'Homage to the Buddha', is granted entrance to the order and straightway proceeds to sainthood. From the literary point of view the essential fact is that the tales are written in prose and verse, clearly of the classical type. We need not doubt that this combination was taken over by the author direct from the contemporary Jātakas current in Pāli, even if no strict proof of this view is possible.

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¹ Cf. Keith, *Buddh. Phil.*, pp. 252 ff.; *Sanskrit Drama*, pp. 80 ff.

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² Ed. BB. 15, 1913.

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³ We find two verses from the *Harivaṃça* in the *Vajrasūcī*.

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The *Sūtrālaṃkāra* mentions a *Buddhacarita*, perhaps Açvaghoṣa's work, and there is reason to suppose that that epic was later than the *Saundarananda*.⁴ At the close of that work Açvaghoṣa frankly declares the purpose which led to his adopting the Kāvya form; he recognizes that men rejoice in the delight of the world and seek not salvation, and therefore he sets out the truth which leads to enlightenment in attractive garb, in the hope that men attracted by it may realize the aim and extract from his work the gold alone. As he makes no allusion to an earlier poem, we may conclude that the *Saundarananda* was his first attempt. The topic of the poem is the legend of the conversion of the reluctant Nanda, his half-brother, by the Buddha, a story recounted in the *Mahāvagga* and the *Nidānakathā*, but Açvaghoṣa deals with it in the approved manner of the later Kāvya. He begins with an account of the foundation of Kapilavāstu, which gives him occasion to display his knowledge of heroic tales and mythology (Canto i). There follows the description of the king, Çuddhodana, and briefly an account of the birth of Sarvārthasiddha and his half-brother Nanda. The Buddha is described in full in the next Canto (iii); then we hear of Sundarī's beauty and the perfection of her union with Nanda as of the night with the moon. Reluctantly Nanda leaves her (iv), and the Buddha hastens to secure his ordination as a monk, much against his inclination (v). Bitter is Sundarī's grief (vi), and Nanda himself seeks by a long list of legendary parallels to defend his desire to cling to his beloved; kings of yore have laid aside the hermit's garb and returned to the world of joy and life (vii). In vain are the demerits of women, the flattery on their lips, the treachery in their hearts, pointed out (viii); in vain is he warned of the evils of pride illustrated by the fate of heroes of the past (ix). The Buddha determines on a bolder plan; he carries him to heaven and shows him on the way in the Himālaya a one-eyed ape of hideous form, asking him if Sundarī is fairer than it. Nanda energetically asserts his wife's loveliness, but on the sight of the heavenly Apsarases must admit that their beauty raises them as far above Sundarī as she is above the ape; with fickle faith he resolves to win an Apsaras as bride, but is warned that he must win heaven by good works, if he is to obtain this end (x). Returned to earth he strives for this end, but Ānanda warns him, adducing a wealth of examples, that the joys of heaven are fleeting and that, when man's merit is exhausted, he must return to earth again (xi). Nanda is thus induced to lay aside all thought of heavenly joys and to seek and obtain instruction from the Buddha; he becomes not merely a saint, but on the Buddha's bidding determines on the nobler course of seeking salvation not for himself alone, but of preaching it to others (xii–xviii).

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⁴ Ed. Haraprasād Śāstrī, BI. 1910. Cf. Baston, JA. 1912, i. 79 ff.; Hultzsch, ZDMG. lxxii-lxxiv; Gawroński, *Studies about the Sansk. Buddh. Lit.*, pp. 56 ff.

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The *Buddhacarita*¹ deals with the greater theme of the life of the Buddha, and it is a misfortune that as we have it the poem contains but seventeen Cantos and of these only the first thirteen—with certain exceptions—are genuine, the remainder being an addition made a century ago by Amṛtānanda who records that he did so because he could not find a manuscript of the rest of the text. The poem now ends with the conversions made at Benares, but the Chinese version, made between A. D. 414 and 421, and the Tibetan, have twenty-eight Cantos, and I-tsing still knew of this number. The exact source which influenced Açvaghoṣa in his choice of incident is unknown, for it is not proved that the *Lalitavistara* existed in his time in anything like its present form. In any case the contrast between the two works is remarkable; the *Lalitavistara* is written in the main in Sanskrit prose of the plain type, intermingled with ballads in mixed Sanskrit of the so-called Gāthā style; at best it is confused, at worst incoherent. Açvaghoṣa's poem is essentially the work of an artist; in choice of incident and arrangement he seeks to produce the maximum effect, and, though he does not vary in essentials the tradition, he renders vivid and affecting the scenes which he describes. The prince's fatal journeying forth from the palace which brings him into contact with the hateful spectacle of age, is preceded by the account of the fair women who crowd to watch his exit; the poet again shows his skill in depicting the loving ruses by which the ladies of the harem seek to divert his mind from the desire to renounce the vanities of the world, and in describing the famous scene when the prince gazing on them in their sleep resolves to abandon the palace. Nor is he skilled in the Kāmaçāstra alone; he adduces the arguments by which the family priests, fortified by the precepts of political science, seeks to deter the prince from his resolution to abandon secular life with its duties, and true to the rule which requires a description of a battle he provides a spirited picture of the contest of Buddha against the demon Māra and his monstrous hosts.

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¹ Ed. E. B. Cowell, Oxford, 1893; trans. SBE. 46; Formichi, Bari, 1912. See also Hultzsch, ZDMG. lxxii. 145 ff.; Cappeller, ZII. ii, 1 ff.; Speyer, JRAS. 1914, pp. 105 ff.; Gawroński, *Rocznik Oryentalistyczny*, i. 1 ff.; i–v ed. and trans. K. M. Joglekar, Bombay, 1912. On Buddhist Sanskrit Literature cf. G. K. Nariman, *Sanskrit Buddhism* (1923).

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There is not the slightest doubt of one of the sources of Açvaghoṣa. Though Cowell was unable to find decisive proof of his knowledge of the *Rāmāyaṇa* as opposed merely to the legend of Rāma, the fact is put beyond doubt, apart from a mention of the poem in the *Sūtrālaṅkāra*, by careful study of the references in the *Buddhacarita* itself¹; when the people of the town see that Siddhārtha has not returned they weep as aforetime when the chariot of Daçaratha’s son returned without him; Çuddhodana compares himself to Daçaratha, bereft of Rāma, whose death he envies, and in these and many other passages there is clear knowledge by Açvaghoṣa of the wording of our present text. It was natural that the parallel should deeply affect Açvaghoṣa, and the broad structure of the episode of the return of Sumantra to Ayodhyā without Rāma and of Chandaka to Kapilavāstu without Siddhārtha is unmistakable; the charioteer leaves his master, and returns to the city now sadly changed; the eager citizens rush out to greet him, learn his news, and are filled with lamentation; the women throng the windows and then withdraw in deep depression to their inner chambers; the charioteer enters the presence of the king. Similarly again, Yaçodharā’s lament for the sufferings of the prince in his new life of hardship is modelled on Sītā’s sorrow for her husband’s sufferings in the forest. Nor does it seem reasonable to deny that the description of the aspect of the women of the harem in sleep is based on the portraiture of Rāvaṇa’s harem.²

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¹ Gawroński, *Studies about the Sansk. Buddh. Lit.*, pp. 27 ff.

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² v. 9–11, which Winternitz (GIL. i. 417) asserts to be based on Açvaghoṣa. But see Walter, *Indica*, iii. 13.

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