A History of Sanskrit Literature c10.s1.5

c10.s1.5

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.