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A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s6.t3: The Lalita-Vistara

A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s6.t3

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The Lalita-Vistara

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While the Mahāvastu itself claims to be a work of the Hīnayāna, but has assimilated features of the Mahāyāna, the Lalita-Vistara¹ is regarded as one of the most sacred Mahāyāna texts, calls itself a Vaipulya-Sūtra ("discourse of great extent")—this being an ordinary term for Mahāyāna Sūtras—and exhibits all the peculiarities of a Mahāyāna Sūtra, although the work originally contained the life-story of the Buddha for the Sarvāstivādins of the Hīnayāna.² However, the mere title Lalita-Vistara, *i.e.*, "the detailed narration of the sport (of the Buddha)," corresponds to Mahāyānistic ideas. The life and work of the Buddha on earth is thus termed "the sport" (lalita) of a supernatural being.³ Even in the introductory chapter, the Buddha appears as an exalted, divine being. It begins, indeed, after the manner of the Pāli Suttas, with the words: "Thus have I heard: once the Lord sojourned at Śrāvastī in the Jeta grove in the garden of Anāthapiṇḍada." However, whereas in the Pāli texts, the actual Sutta begins immediately after these or similar stereotyped introductory words, in which the Master is introduced to us surrounded by a few disciples, or at the most by a following of "five hundred monks," the Lalita-Vistara, like all Vaipulya-Sūtras of the Mahāyāna, first sketches a splendid picture of the Buddha, with divine brilliance shining around it. He is surrounded by 12,000 monks and no less than 32,000 Bodhisattvas, "all only bound to one more rebirth, all born with the perfections of a Bodhisattva, all rejoicing in the knowledge of a Bodhisattva, all in the possession of insight into magic sayings," and so on. While he sits absorbed in deep meditation in the middle watch of the night, a ray of light bursts forth from the parting of his hair, penetrates into the worlds of heaven and plunges all the gods into excitement. The gods immediately begin a song in praise of the exalted Buddha, and soon Iśvara and other gods appear before the Lord, throw themselves at his feet and implore him, for the salvation and blessing of the world, to reveal the excellent Vaipulya-Sūtra, called Lalita-Vistara, while, in extravagant terms, they praise the advantages of this text, which had also been revealed by former Buddhas. By maintaining silence, Buddha gives his consent. It is only after this circumstantial introduction, which occupies a whole, long chapter, that the actual narrative begins, the biography of Buddha, which forms the contents of the work. As a matter of fact, it begins where, in the Nidāna-Kathā, the second section (*avidūrenidāna*) begins:

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¹ First edition by *Rājendralāla Mitra* in Bibl. Ind. 1877 (very faulty); a better edition by *S. Lefmann*, Halle a. S. 1902 and 1908. Even this edition, [however, needs. correcting. *Cf.* Friedrich *Weller*, Zum Lalita-Vistara, Diss. Leipzig 1915, p. 8 ff. The English translation by *Rājendralāla Mitra* (Bibl. Ind. 1881-1886) only goes as far as Chapter XV; Chapters I-V translated into German by *S. Lefmann*, Berlin 1875; a complete French translation by *Ph. Ed. Foucaux* in AMG, t. 6 et 19 (Paris 1884, 1892).

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² Thus according to the Chinese tradition. *Cf.* *S. Beal*, The Romantic Legend of Śakya Buddha from the Chinese-Sanskrit, London 1875, Introd.; *Foucaux*, Lalita Vistara traduit, t. II, Introd. *Beal's* "Romantic Legend" is an abridged translation from the Chinese of the Abhiniṣkramaṇa-Sūtra, which has not come down in Sanskrit, but was translated into Chinese between 280 and 312 A.D. by Nie Tao-Tchen (s. *Bagchi*, l. c., I, p. 128) and in 587 A.D. by Jinagupta. It is said to be the biography of Buddha for the sect of the Dharmaguptas.

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³ As regards the title, see *Lefmann*, Translation, p 70 ff., Edition, Vol. II, p. VI f., *Foucaux*, t. II, p. 3 and *Winternitz*, WZKM 26, 1912, p. 241. The work also calls itself a Mahā-Nidāna, *i.e.*, "a great (Sūtra treating) of the beginnings (of the Buddha's career,") and "Lalita-Vistara-Purāṇa," a term which is fitting in so far as the style of the work is not unlike that of the Purāṇas.

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The Bodhisattva sojourns in the heaven of the Contented (Tuṣita) gods in a magnificent heavenly palace. (The Bodhisattva receives over a hundred laudatory titles and the heavenly palace in which he lives, receives over a dozen.) Amid the sound of 84,000 drums he is invited to descend to earth in order to commence his work of salvation. After long consultations, in which the advantages and defects of a large number of royal families are weighed in the balance, the Bodhisattva decides to be reborn in the house of King Śuddhodana, and in the womb of Queen Māyā, as she possesses all the qualities of the mother of a Buddha. As perfect as her beauty (described down to the minutest detail) is her virtue and purity. She alone, of all the women of India, is able to bear the future Buddha, as the strength of ten thousand elephants is combined in her. With the aid of the gods the conception takes place, after the Bodhisattva has decided to penetrate into the womb in the shape of an elephant. The gods not only procure a heavenly dwelling as the confinement chamber for Māyā, but they also create a jewelled palace in her womb, so that the Bodhisattva shall not be defiled for ten months by the mother’s womb. In this jewelled palace he has a beautifully soft seat. His body radiates in glorious beauty, and a light shines out for miles from the body of his mother. The sick come to Māyā Devī and are cured of their sufferings as soon as she lays her hand on their heads. “And whenever she looked to her right, she saw the Bodhisattva in her womb, as one sees one’s own face in a clear mirror.” While still in the womb the unborn Bodhisattva delights the gods with pious preaching, and the god Brahman obeys his every hint.[^1)

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In the same way as the conception, the birth of the Bodhisattva also takes place amid mighty miracles and signs. In the Lumbinī grove he is born of Māyā in the manner known to us from so many sculptures, not as an ordinary mortal, but as an omniscient, exalted being, as Mahāpuruṣa, “the Great Spirit.” While lotus blossoms spring forth under each of his footsteps, the new-born one, proclaiming his greatness, takes seven steps in each of the six directions.[^2)

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Here the narrative is interrupted by a dialogue between Ānanda and the Buddha,[^3) which declaims against those unbelievers who refuse to believe in the miraculous birth of the Buddha. The belief in the Buddha is taught as a necessary part of the religion; and we are reminded of the Kṛṣṇa of the Bhagavad-Gītā, when Buddha here says:

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[^1): Chapts. 2-6. The beginning of Chapt. 6 is translated by *Windisch*, Buddha’s Geburt, p. 152 ff. [^2): In the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads, the creator Prajāpati is called Puruṣa and Mahāpuruṣa, and later Brahman and Viṣṇu too. The seven steps of the new-born Buddha child are to be explained merely by the myth of the steps of Viṣṇu. [^3): Chapt. 7, ed. Lefmann, pp. 87-91.

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“I do good to all who will believe in me. Those who seek refuge in me are as my friends. And the Tathāgata has many friends. But those friends of the Tathāgata speak only truth, not falsehood...To believe, O Ānanda, may this be your aim. Thereto I admonish you.”

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It is surely no accident that this dialogue appears inserted just here. The reason is that, precisely with regard to legends of the conception and birth of the Buddha, the Lalita-Vistara differs very conspicuously from the accounts of the other schools by its exaggeration of the miraculous element. This is not so in the further account of the Buddha’s life. In fact we find here very frequently an exceedingly close agreement with the oldest Pāli accounts, *e.g.*, those in the Mahāvagga of the Vinayapiṭaka,¹ and the Gāthās of the Lalita-Vistara sometimes appear to be more archaic than the corresponding Pāli texts. The two texts are in such cases not dependent on one another, but both reach back to a common older tradition. Here, too, however, the Lalita-Vistara has much that is entirely missing in the older accounts. Two episodes in particular are noteworthy. The one (Chapter VIII) relates how the Bodhisattva, as a boy, is taken to the temple by his foster-mother, and all the statues of the gods rise from their pedestals in order to fall at his feet. The other (Chapter X) tells of the Bodhisattva’s first day at school:

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¹ For the relationship of the Pāli tradition to the Lalita-Vistara, see *Burnouf*, Lotus de la bonne Loi, p. 864 ff.; *Oldenberg* in OC V, Berlin 1882, Vol. 2, pp. 107-122. Cf. also *Windisch*, “Māra und Buddha” and “Buddha’s Geburt,” and *Kern*, SBE Vol. 21, p. xi ff.

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With a following of ten thousand boys, with tremendous pomp and with all the gods participating, and with 8,000 divine maidens scattering flowers before him, the little Bodhisattva makes his entry into the writing school. The poor school-master cannot bear the glory of the Bodhisattva, and falls to the ground. A god raises him, and calms him by saying that the Bodhisattva, though omniscient and having no need to learn anything, yet, following the course of the world, has come to school. Then the Bodhisattva surprised the school-master by asking him which of the 64, kinds of script he was going to teach him. And he enumerates them all including the scripts of the Cīṇas (Chinese) and Hūṇas (Huns), scripts which the teacher does not even know by name. Finally the teacher begins to teach the ten thousand boys the alphabet. At every letter of the alphabet, however, the Bodhisattva gives utterance to a wise saying beginning with the letter in question.[^1)

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Chapters XII [^2) and XIII also contain episodes, which are missing in the other biographies of the Buddha. On the other hand, the rest of the story (Chapters XIV-XXVI) differs but little from the legend as it is known from other sources :[^3) namely, the four encounters by which the Bodhisattva becomes acquainted with age, disease, death and renunciation of the world, the flight from the palace, the meeting with King Bimbisāra, the apprenticeship of Gotama and his futile ascetic practices, the conflict with Māra, the final enlightenment and the proclaiming of the doctrine at the request of the god Brahman. The last chapter (XXVII), however, in the true manner of the Mahāyāna Sūtras, is devoted to the glorification of the Lalita-Vistara itself, and the enumeration of the merits and advantages which one gains by propagating and honouring it.

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From all this it is very probable that the Lalita-Vistara is a recast of an older Hīnayāna text, the Buddha biography of the Sarvāstivāda school, enlarged and embellished in the spirit of the Mahāyāna. This supposition also explains the

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[^1): E. Kuhn (Gurupūjākaumudī, p. 116 ff.) has proved that these two legends of the little Buddha served as models for the apocryphal gospels, which relate similar stories of the little Jesus. [^2): For this, cf. Winternitz, WZKM 26, 1912, p. 237 ff. [^3): Here too, however, the Lalita-Vistara frequently distinguishes itself by its exaggerations. Whilst in our oldest record (Mahā-Vagga I, 1-4), for instance, Gotama spends the four weeks after his enlightenment, in meditation under various trees, in the Lalita-Vistara (ed. Lefmann, p. 377) he takes a "long walk" in the second week through thousands of worlds, and in the fourth week a "short walk," which extends only from the Eastern to the Western ocean.

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character of the text, which is by no means the unified work of one author, but an anonymous compilation, in which very early and very recent passages stand side by side. In form, too, the work consists of unequal parts, a continuous narrative in Sanskrit prose, and numerous, often long, metrical passages in "mixed Sanskrit."[^1) It is rarely that these verses form a part of the narrative; as a rule they are independent songs, which relate the subject-matter of the prose, in a shorter, simpler, and sometimes in a more or less deviating form. Some of these songs, such as the birth legend and the Asita episode in Chapter VII, the Bimbisāra story in Chapter XVI, the dialogue with Māra in Chapter XVIII, etc., are beautiful old ballads, which are derived from the same ancient sources as the above-mentioned (p. 96 f.) poems of the Suttanipāta. They belong to the old religious ballad poetry of the early centuries after the Buddha. Many prose passages, too, as for instance, the sermon of Benares (in Chapter XXVI) belong to the oldest stratum of Buddhist tradition. On the other hand, the later parts are found not only in the prose, but also in the Gāthās, many of which are composed in very artistic metres.[^2)

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When the Lalita-Vistara was finally edited, we do not know. It was formerly erroneously stated that the work had been translated into Chinese as early as in the first century A.D.[^3) Actually, we do not even know whether the P'ou-yao-king, the biography of Buddha translated by

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[^1): *F. Weller*, Zum Lalita Vistara, I, Über die Prosa des Lalita Vistara, Leipzig Diss. 1915, has made it seem probable that even the prose in the Lalita-Vistara was not originally written in Sanskrit, but in a dialect akin to the prose of the Mahāvastu, and that it was not sanskritized until later. [^2): Thus the Vasantatilakā and the Śārdūlavikrīḍita are fairly frequent. See the list of metres in *Lefmann's* edition, Vol. II, p. 227 ff., and Introduction, p. xix ff. [^3): By *B. Nanjio*, who regarded the Fo-pen-hing-king (68 A.D.) which has been lost long ago, as a translation of the Lalita-Vistara: but there is no proof whatsoever for such an assumption. *Cf. Bagchi*, l.c., I, p. 6.

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Dharmarakṣa in the year 308 A. D., the supposed "second translation of the Lalita-Vistara," is really a translation of the text in question at all.¹ The Tibetan translation² is an accurate translation of the Sanskrit text, but it only originated in the 9th century. It may be assumed with certainty that a version, differing slightly from the Lalita-Vistara, was known to the artists who, from about 850 to 900 A.D., decorated the famous temple of Boro-Budur in Java: for these magnificent sculptures represent scenes from the Buddha legend in such a manner as though the artists had actually worked with a text of the Lalita-Vistara at their hand.³

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¹ It contains only 8 chapters. See *Winternitz*, WZKM 26, 1912, 241 f., and *Bagchi*, l.c., I, p. 87 f.

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² Edited and translated into French by *Ph. E. Foucaux* (*Rgya-tcher-rol-pa, Version tibétaine du Lalitavistara*), Paris 1847-48.

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³ *C. M. Pleyte*, Die Buddhalegende in den Skulpturen des Tempels von Bôrô-Budur, Amsterdam 1901, and *N. J. Krom*, The Life of Buddha on the Stūpa of Barabuḍu according to the Lalitavistara-Text, The Hague 1926, have given extracts from the Lalita-Vistara in translation, by way of explanation of the sculptures. *Cf. Speyer*, Le Muséon, N. S. IV, 1903, p. 124 ff.; *F. C. Wilsen*, Die Buddha-Legende auf den Flachreliefs der ersten Galerie des Stūpa von Boro-Budur Java, verkleinerte Wiedergabe der Umrisszeichnungen, Leipzig 1923 (Veröffentl. des Forschungsinstituts für vergleichende Religionsgeschichte).

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The artists who adorned the Græco-Buddhist monuments of Northern India with scenes from the life of the Buddha, must already have been familiar with the Buddha legend, as it is related in the Lalita-Vistara. It is true that they did not work from texts, but from living, oral tradition. Not infrequently, however, the agreement between the pictures and the texts is so striking, that we must assume that the literary tradition, too, was sometimes influenced by art. Art and literature influenced each other.⁴ Whilst the ancient Buddhist art of the time of Aśoka (reliefs of Bharhut, Sānchi, etc.) knows no representations of Buddha, but puts only symbols (*e.g.*, the wheel) in the place of the person of the founder of the religion, the representation of Buddha is one of the principal objects of the Gandhāra art. May this not be connected with the fact that the Buddha had, in the meantime, become an object of Bhakti, and that Buddha-worship had assumed the central position in the religion? Thus everything favours the supposition that the period of the development of the Gandhāra¹ art, that is, the first two centuries of the Christian era, is also the period of the earlier Mahāyāna texts which deal with the Buddha legend.

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⁴ See *A. Foucher*, L'art gréco-bouddhique du Gandhāra, t, I, Paris 1905, p. 324 f., 616 ff.; *Grünwedel*, Buddhistische Kunst in Indien, p. 98, 104 f., 184; *Senart*, OO XIV, Alger 1905, I, 121 ff. and *T. Bloch*, ZDMG 62, p. 370 ff.

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¹ Scholars are practically unanimous in assuming that the Græco-Buddhist art of Gandhāra began shortly before the birth of Christ, and attained its perfection in the second century A.D., especially during the reign of Kaniṣka. See G. Bühler in Anzeiger der Kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Phil.—hist. Kl., 1896, p. 66 f.; A. Grünwedel, Buddhistische Kunst in Indien, Berlin 1900, p. 81; A. Foucher, L’art gréco-bouddhique du Gandhāra, I, Paris 1905, p. 40 ff.; II, 1918, pp. 401 ff., 486 ff.; V. A. Smith, Early History, pp. 255 ff., 252; History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, Oxford 1911, p. 99 (“It is quite safe to affirm that the works of good quality belong to the first three centuries of the Christian era”); L. A. Waddell in JRAS, 1914, p. 140 f.; Sir J. H. Marshall in JRAS 1909, 1056 ff.; Cambridge History, I, 1922, p. 648.

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It is therefore only correct to say that the Lalita-Vistara offers us very old traditions concerning the Buddha legend, as well as some which are centuries later. It is an important source for ancient Buddhism only in those passages which agree with the Pāli texts and other Sanskrit texts such as the Mahāvastu. It is wrong, however, to regard the whole Lalita-Vistara as a good, ancient source for our knowledge of Buddhism, as has been done, notably by É. Senart in his “Essai sur la légende du Buddha.”² Neither does the Lalita-Vistara give us information on the “popular Buddhism” of the early period, as Louis de La Vallée Poussin affirms.³ It is, however, most informative as regards the development of the Buddha legend from its earliest beginnings, when only the chief events in the life of the great founder of the religion are adorned with miracles, down to that boundless deification of the Master, in which, from the beginning to the end of his career, he appears mainly as a god above all gods. On this account the work is of immense value from the point of view of the history of religion. From the point of view of the history of literature, too, the Lalita-Vistara is one of the most important works of Buddhist scripture. Though it is not yet an actual Buddha epic, it contains all the germs of such an epic; and it is from the ballads and episodes as preserved in the earliest portions of the Lalita-Vistara, though probably not from the Lalita-Vistara itself, that Aśvaghoṣa, the greatest poet of the Buddhists, created his magnificent epic Buddha-Carita, “life of the Buddha.”¹

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² 2nd Ed., Paris 1882, pp. XXXI f., 456 f.

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³ Bouddhisme, Études et Matériaux, pp. 37 and 42 f. According to *La Vallée Poussin*, the Pāli texts show us only an “aristocratic and philosophical Buddhism.”

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¹ I do not agree with S. *Lévi* when (JA 1892, s. 8, t. XIX, p. 202) he calls the Buddha-Carita “un abrégé substantiel du Lalita Vistara.” At least the Lalita-Vistara in its present form cannot have been the model which Aśvaghoṣa used.

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*The Poet Aśvaghoṣa*² *and his School.*

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² On Aśvaghoṣa in general, see S. *Lévi* in JA 1892, ser. 8. t. XIX, p. 201 ff.; 1908, s. 10, t. XII, p. 57 ff.; T. *Suzuki*, Açvaghosha's Discourse on the Awakening of Faith, Transl., Chicago 1900, Introduction; M. *Anesaki* in ERE II, 1909, p. 159 f.; and F. W. *Thomas*, Kavīndravacanasamuccaya, Bibl. Ind. 1912, p. 25 ff. A purely legendary biography of Aśvaghoṣa was translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva between 401 and 409 A.D.; it is published in extracts, by W. *Wassiljew*, Der Buddhismus, St. Petersburg 1860, p. 231 f.

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Until the year 1892, when the French scholar Sylvain Lévi published the first chapter of the Buddha-Carita, little more than the name of Aśvaghoṣa was known in Europe. To-day we know him as one of the most prominent poets of Sanskrit literature, as the most important predecessor of Kālidāsa, and as the creator of epic, dramatic and lyrical compositions; but of his life we know little. The traditions embodied in the Chinese and Tibetan sources agree in asserting that Aśvaghoṣa was a contemporary of King Kaniṣka (2nd century A.D.).¹ Pārśva or his pupil Puṇyayaśas is mentioned as his teacher, and he is generally enumerated among the leaders or founders of the Mahāyāna.² In the Chinese lists of the Buddhist patriarchs in India, he always appears after Pārśva and Puṇyayaśas, and *before* Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva. It may be taken as certain that he was of Brahman family, and had enjoyed a thorough Brahmanical education before he went over to Buddhism. As a Buddhist he probably associated himself first with the Sarvāstivāda school,³ but laid great stress on the Buddha-Bhakti and thus prepared the Mahāyāna. Sāketa (*i.e.*, Ayodhyā, the present-day Oudh) is generally given as his birthplace or home; but Benares and Patna are also mentioned. His mother was called Suvarṇākṣī. The Tibetan biographer of Aśvaghoṣa says of him: “There was no question which he would not have solved, no imputation which he would not have rejected; he overcame his opponents as frequently as a strong wind breaks rotten trees.” According to the same account, he was also an excellent musician, who himself composed pieces of music and travelled about with a band of male and female singers in the bazaars. He played and sang with his choir melancholy songs about the vanity of existence, and, attracted by the beautiful melodies, the crowd stood still and listened. In this way he won many over to the religion.⁴ The Chinese pilgrim I-tsing, who travelled through India in 671-695 A. D., speaks of the learned monks, who oppose the heretics with great success, promote the religion of the Buddha, and therefore receive respect above gods and men, and says that "of such persons in every generation only one or two appear," such men as "Nāgārjuna, Deva, Aśvaghoṣa of an early age." [^1) ] I-tsing also relates that at his time in India, among other songs which were chanted at Buddhist sanctuaries, there was a collection of sacred texts compiled by Aśvaghoṣa. He mentions him also as a composer of songs, of the Sūtrālaṃkāra and of the Buddha-Carita.2)

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¹ According to Chinese sources, Aśvaghoṣa was the spiritual counsellor and Caraka was the medical adviser of King Kaniṣka. *Cf.* *Lévi* in JA 1896, s. 9, t. VIII, p. 447 f. On the period of Kaniṣka, s. Appendix V, and Vol. I, p. 513.

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² Perhaps this is only based on the fact that the [authorship of the Mahāyāna-Śraddhotpāda was attributed to him.

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³ See *Lévi*, JA 1908, s. 10, t. XII, pp. 90 ff., 184, and H. *Lüders*, Bruchstücke buddhistischer Dramen, Berlin 1911, p. 65. According to Vasubandhu he is supposed to have assisted Kātyāyanīputra with the commentary on the Abhidharma.

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⁴ A. *Schiefner* in ABA 1859, p. 259 ff.

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1) *Hsüan-Tsang* (Si-yu-ki, Buddhist Records of the Western World, transl. by S. Beal, II, p. 302 f.) calls Aśvaghoṣa, Deva, Nāgārjuna and Kumāralabdha "the four suns that illamined the world."

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2) I-tsing, Record transl. by *Takakusu*, pp. 152 f., 165, 181.

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Of the Buddha-Carita 3) I-tsing says that "this extensive work......relates the Tathāgata's chief doctrines and works during his life, from the period when he was still in the royal palace till his last hour under the avenue of Sāla-trees." And he adds: "It is widely read or sung throughout the five divisions of India, and the countries of the Southern Sea.[^4)

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3) The text has been edited by E. B. Cowell, Oxford (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Aryan Series, Vol. I, Part VII) 1893, and translated by the same scholar in SBE, Vol. 49. Translated into German by C. Cappeller, Jena 1922 (Religiöse Stimmen der Völker) and R. Schmidt, Hagen 1924; into Italian by C. Formichi, Açvaghoṣa, poeta del Buddhismo, Bari 1912. Contributions to the critical restoration of the text and explanation of the Buddha-Carita by O. Böhtlingk in BSGW 1894, 160 ff.; F. Kielhorn in NGGW 1894, p. 364 ff.; J. S. Speyer in Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Kon. Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Lett., 3de Reeks, Deel XI, Amsterdam 1895, and JRAS 1914, p. 105 ff.; L. Finot in JA 1898, s. 9, t. XII, p. 542 ff.; Formichi, l.c., pp. 289-400, 409. E. Leumann, in WZKM 7, 1893, 193 ff.; NGGW 1896, 83 ff.; Lüders in NGGW 1896, 1 ff.; K. M. Joglekar, Ashvaghosha's Buddha-Charita, cantos I-V with a scholium by Dattatraya Shastri Nigdukar, and Introduction, Notes, and Translation, Bombay, 1912; A. Gawroński, Gleanings from Aśvaghoṣa's Buddhacarita, in Rocznik Oryentalistyczny I, Krakow 1914-15, 1 ff.; and Studies about the Sanskrit-Buddhist Literature, Krakow 1919, pp. 1 ff., 27 ff.; E. Hultzsch in ZDMG 72, 1918, 148 ff.; C. Cappeller in ZII 1, 1922, p. 1 ff.; E. H. Johnston in JRAS 1927, 209 ff.

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4) This means the Malay Archipelago (Sumatra, Java, and the neighbouring islands). Takakusu, l.c., p. xxxix.

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He clothes manifold meanings and ideas in a few words, which rejoice the heart of the reader so that he never feels tired from reading the poem. Besides, it should be counted as meritorious for one to read this book, inasmuch as it contains the noble doctrines given in a concise form.”¹ We gather from the words of I-tsing that he knew the Buddha-Carita in the form in which it appeared in the Chinese translation,² where the epic consists of 28 cantos, and the narrative is continued down to the Nirvāṇa of the Buddha. As the Tibetan translation³ also consists of 28 cantos, we must assume that the Sanskrit text, which consist of 17 cantos, and ends with the conversions in Benares, only represents a torso. In any case the work is a torso, for even of these seventeen cantos, only the first thirteen are old and authentic. The work was completed by a certain Amṛtānanda, who copied it at the beginning of the 19th century, and added the conclusion, because (as he himself admits) he could find no complete manuscripts.⁴

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¹ *I-tsing*, l.c., p. 165 f.

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² This is the Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king, translated from Sanskrit into Chinese between 414 and 421 A.D. by Dharmarakṣa, and translated into English by Samuel Beal in SBE, Vol. 19. T. W. *Rhys Davids* (JRAS 1901, p. 405 f.) has asserted that this Chinese work is not a translation of Aśvaghoṣa's Buddha-Carita at all. Else *Wohlgemuth*, however (Über die chinesische Version von Aśvaghoṣas Buddhacarita, Diss. Leipzig 1916), has shown that the Chinese version is undoubtedly based on Aśvaghoṣa's poem, though some things have been added and others omitted, and that the recension on which it is based differed from the one which we know.

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³ The Tibetan translation of the 7th or 8th century is far more accurate than the Chinese one, but on the other hand it does not (at least in the first canto) reproduce the original text of Aśvaghoṣa. *Cf.* E. *Leumann* in WZKM 7, 1893, p. 193 ff. and Friedrich *Weller*, Das Leben des Buddha von Aśvaghoṣa, Tibetisch und Deutsch, Leipzig 1926 (Gesang I-VIII übersetzt; in Veröffentlichungen des Forschungsinstituts für vergleichende Religionsgeschichte an der Universität Leipzig, II, 3); Part II, 1928.

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⁴ Also a manuscript of the Buddha-Carita discovered by *Haraprasāda Śāstrī* only goes as far as the middle of Canto XIV (JASB, N. S., Vol. V, 1909, p. 47 ff.).

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However, even with the mere torso which has come down to us, we can but fully endorse what the Chinese pilgrim has said in praise of the Buddha-Carita. Here we have indeed for the first time an actual epic of Buddha, created by a real poet, a poet who, filled with intense love and reverence for the exalted figure of the Buddha, and deeply imbued with the truth of the Buddha doctrine, is able to present the life and doctrine of the Master in noble and artistic, but not artificial language. His Sanskrit is faultless, even though it does not always comply strictly with the rules of Pāṇini.¹ The Buddha-Carita calls itself a Mahākāvya, or "great poem," *i.e.*, an ornate epic poem in the technical sense, and it is composed in the so-called Kāvya style, the beginnings of which we have already found in the Rāmāyaṇa.² Vālmīki and his immediate successors were the predecessors of Aśvaghoṣa, in the same way as the latter himself is a predecessor of Kālidāsa. All these three great poets have one thing in common: they are still very moderate in their use of the Alaṃkāras or "embellishments." Aśvaghoṣa is not only moderate in language and style, but he also uses restraint in the presentation of miracles in the Buddha legend. He always keeps himself far removed from such exaggerations as we find, for instance, in the Lalita-Vistara. In contrast to the chaotic disorder in texts like the Mahāvastu and the Lalita-Vistara, we find in the Buddha-Carita a well-planned, artistic arrangement of the material. Although the poet is quite familiar with the older sacred texts, he nevertheless assumes a certain amount of freedom in his attitude towards them. Not that he has made any alterations in the traditions; but he has the art of clothing the old familiar legends in a new poetical garment,³ and of imparting original expression to the well-known doctrines of the Buddhist Sūtras. Aśvaghoṣa is always more of a poet than a monk, at least in the Buddha-Carita.

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¹ *Cf.* *Sukumar Sen* in Ind. Hist. Qu. II, 1916, p. 657 ff.

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² *Cf.* above, Vol. I, pp. 476, 489 f., 497, 506.

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³ As *Windisch* (Māra und Buddha, p. 205) says, Aśvaghoṣa seems "almost intentionally to have avoided any resemblance to the wording of older texts."

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How different from the Lalita-Vistara is, for instance, the highly poetical description of the excursions of the young prince in Cantos III and IV!

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First of all there is a beautiful description of how, on hearing that the prince is going out, the women of the city, full of curiosity, hasten from their rooms to the house-tops and the windows. Hampered by their falling girdles, they scamper up in the greatest haste, pushing and jostling one another, and scaring away the birds on the roofs by the clattering of the girdles and rings. The lotus faces of the fair ones, leaning out of the windows, look as though the walls of the houses were decorated with real lotus blossoms.¹ Beautifully the poet then describes the encounter with the old man, whom the gods cause to appear. In consternation the prince asks:

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¹ In the Raghuvaṁśa (VII, 5-12) Kālidāsa imitated this description of Aśvaghoṣa (Buddha-Carita III, 13-24), as has already been pointed out by Cowell (Buddha-Carita, Edition, Preface).

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'Who is the man who here approaches, O charioteer,
With white hair, and eyes sunk deep in their sockets,
Bent down on his staff, his limbs trembling?—
Is it a process of Nature, or the sport of destiny?'

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Whereupon the charioteer replies:

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"It is age which has broken him,—Age,
The thief of beauty and destroyer of strength,
The source of care and the end of joys,
The foe of the senses, the vanishing of memories.
He, too, has sucked at the mother's breast
As a little child, learned walking in the course of time,
Gradually he grew big and strong, a youth,
Gradually age has overtaken him."

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After the prince, on his three excursions, has become acquainted with age, disease and death, he takes no more pleasure in anything. It is in vain that the family priest, at the King's request, invites the women and girls of the palace to apply all the arts of love in order to inveigle the prince and to drive away his sad thoughts. The prince remains unmoved by all the sweet temptations. He only marvels at the gay doings of these women, and exclaims (IV, 60 f.):

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“ How senseless seems to me the man who has seen
his neighbour ill and old and dead,
And yet remains happy and is not shaken by fear.
Thus, when a tree which, quite bereft of blossoms
and of fruits,
Is felled or falls,—the neighbour tree cares not.”

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The presentation of love scenes is one of the indispensable elements of an ornate court poem. The poet fulfils this requirement by describing the blandishments of the beautiful women, by which they seek to tempt the prince (IV, 24-53); and in the highly-coloured description of the night scene in the harem, which is the cause of the prince's flight from the palace,¹ the poet reveals his knowledge of the science of love. But a court poet must also be versed in the doctrines of Nītiśāstra, state-craft. Such doctrines are recited to the prince by the family priest (IV, 62-82), in order to distract him from his thoughts. Lastly, an ornate poem is not complete without a description of battle scenes. Our poet fulfils this requirement also, in Canto XIII, in which he gives an animated description of the battle of Buddha with Māra and his hosts.

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¹ V, 48-62. This scene is related in its original version with regard to the youth Yasa in the Vinayapiṭaka (see above, p. 27). It has already been stated (see above, Vol. I, p. 490, note 3) that the similar scene in Rāmāyaṇa, V, 9, 11, was composed in imitation of Aśvaghoṣa.

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The Saundarānanda-Kāvya,² a second poem by Aśvaghoṣa, also belongs to the same class of ornate court poetry. This work, too, is connected with the life story of the Buddha, but it amplifies those scenes and episodes in particular, which receive scanty attention or none at all, in the Buddha-Carita. Thus, in Canto I, the story of the founding of Kapilavastu is related in minute detail. The actual theme of this poem, however, is the story of the love-lorn Nanda, the half-brother of the Buddha, who is ordained as a monk against his will by the Buddha:

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² The poem was discovered by *Haraprasāda Śāstrī*, and was also edited by him, Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1910. A new critical edition, with notes, by *E. H. Johnston*, has just been published in the Punjab University Oriental Publications, Oxford University Press, London, 1928. *Cf. Haraprasāda Śāstrī* in JASB 5, 1909, p. 165 f.; *F. W. Thomas* in JRAS 1911, p. 1125 f.; *A. Baston* in JA 1912, s. 10, t. XIX, p. 79 ff.; *La Vallée Poussin* in BSOS 1918, p. 133 ff.; *A. Gawroński*, Studies about the Sanskrit Buddhist Literature, Krakow 1919, p. 56 ff.; Notes on the Saundarānanda, Critical and Explanatory, Second Series (Prace Komisji Orjental. Polskiej Akad. Um. Nr. 6.) W Krakowie 1922; *E. Hultzsch* in ZDMG 72, 1918, p. 111 ff.; 73, 229 ff.; 74, 293 ff.; *C. W. Gurner* in JRAS 1923, p. 131 f. From the concluding verses we may perhaps (with *Hultzsch*, ZDMG 72, 121 f.) assume that Aśvaghoṣa wrote the Saundarānanda first and the Buddha-Carita afterwards.

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Just as Sundarī, the beautiful wife of Nanda, mourns and laments for her lost husband, so Nanda, too, longs to be back with his beloved. Vain are the attempts of the other monks to calm him. Even Buddha's words fail to change his mood. Then the Master takes him by the hand, and ascends with him to heaven. On the way they see in the Himālaya an ugly, one-eyed female ape, and Buddha asks him whether Sundarī is more beautiful than this, which Nanda of course enthusiastically affirms. Soon they see in heaven the Apsaras, the heavenly nymphs, and Nanda thinks that the difference between the last-named and his wife, is just as great as between her and the one-eyed ape. From that moment he has an ardent desire for the heavenly women, and, on his return to earth, devotes himself diligently to ascetic practices in order to reach heaven. Then Ānanda teaches him that even heavenly pleasures are empty and vain. At last Nanda is convinced, and goes to Buddha, in order to tell him that he no longer desires the heavenly women. Buddha rejoices greatly at this, and preaches to him (in several cantos) the principles of his doctrine. Now Nanda retires into the forest, practises the four great meditations, and becomes an Arhat. Thankfully he goes to Buddha and pays homage to him, but the Master exhorts him, now that he has attained his object, to preach the good doctrine to others, out of pity, and so as to lead them to liberation.[^1)

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[^1): In the Vinayapiṭaka (Mahāvagga 1, 54) and the Nidāna-Kathā (Jātaka ed. *Fausböll*, I, p. 91; *Rhys Davids*, Buddhist Birth Stories, p. 128) it is only related that Nanda was ordained as a monk by Buddha against his will. The legend of Nanda's ascent to heaven and his yearning for the Apsarases is told in Udāna III. 2, and in the Dhammapada Commentary I, 9 (Buddhist Legends, transl. by *Burlingame*, HOS, Vol. 28, p. 217 ff.). See also *Spence Hardy*, Manual of Buddhism, p. 204; and *Kern*, Der Buddhismus, I, 155 f. Some scenes from the Nanda legend are also to be found on reliefs, s. *Foucher*, L'art gréco-bouddhique, I, p. 464 ff.

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In the concluding verses, the poet states emphatically that he has written his work, the aim of which is liberation, not for the sake of delectation, but with a view to perfect peace; he has given it the form of an ornate poem, only so as to be able to win over non-Buddhist hearers to Buddha's doctrine, and to make this doctrine palatable to them, just as one mixes a bitter medicine with honey to make it drinkable. Much space in the Saundarānanda is accordingly devoted to preaching, in which the poet makes use of much the same expressions which are familiar to us from the Tipiṭaka. The joys of solitude and meditation are extolled in this poem just as in other Hīnayāna works.¹ Nevertheless the Saundarānanda also alludes to doctrines which are peculiar to the Mahāyāna. Nanda is filled with the "great pity," which makes him search his heart, in deep commiseration, for means whereby he may release the beings from suffering (XIII, 8). Whilst the Tipiṭaka teaches often enough that everything is "transitory, without self, and full of suffering," Nanda attains to the realisation that everything is "transitory, empty (śūnya), without self, and full of suffering."² And at the end, it is not enough for Nanda himself to become a saint who attains to Nirvāṇa: he must also become an apostle.³

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¹ The recommendation of *yogācāra* in XIV, 18, and XX, 68, does not refer to the *yogācāra* school of the Mahāyāna, but only to the advantages of the practice of Yoga (Haraprasāda Śāstrī, Preface, p. xii). Moreover, the tendency of the Hīnayāna, is seen clearly when Nanda pays homage to Buddha, and Buddha restrains him by saying that worship is due not to him, but to the Dharma (XVIII, 22).

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² XVII, 16-22. Cf. Vidhusekhara Bhattacharya in JRAS 1914, p. 747 f.

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³ However, the Hīnayāna, too, valued highly the duty of instruction and conversion: this is shown, for instance, by the Sutta quoted above, on p. 62 f., from the Aṅguttaranikāya.

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In the Buddha-Carita, too, Aśvaghoṣa's teaching is in the main that of the Hīnayāna, though traces of the Mahāyāna are not wanting. Book XVI contains the "Sermon of Benares,” which is only a poetical and expanded version of the text known from the Tipiṭaka, but it also speaks of the body as “empty, without a self” (śūnyam anātmakam, XVI, 28), calls the Buddha not only “the Self-born” (Svayambhū), “the Overlord of the Whole Dharma,” but even the “Lord of the World” (XVI, 64; 69). And he even says that he has attained the Great Vehicle, the Mahāyāna, that has been set forth by all the Buddhas for establishing the welfare of all beings (XVI, 75; 85). Thus Aśvaghoṣa probably belongs to the period of the beginning of the Mahāyāna.

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Both in the Buddhacarita and the Saundarānanda there are abundant allusions to Brahmanical legends and epic narratives, which serve to confirm the tradition that Aśvaghoṣa was of Brahman family.

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The Vajrasūcī or “Diamond Needle,”[^1) which is sometimes ascribed to Aśvaghoṣa, also reveals an intimate knowledge of Brahmanical literature. Unfortunately there are grave doubts as to whether he was actually the author of this little work, which is certainly interesting in any case. This work refutes the Brahmanical caste system very cuttingly. The author’s method is extremely effective, for he takes up the Brahmanical standpoint, and seeks to prove from the Brahmanical texts themselves, by quotations from the Veda, the Mahābhārata and the law-book of Manu,[^2) how frail the claims of the Brahman caste are. When B. H. Hodgson

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[^1): Wujra Soochi or Refutation of the Arguments upon which the Brahmanical Institution of Caste is Founded, by the learned Boodhist Ashwa Ghoshu (published by Lancelot Wilkinson with the translation by B. H. Hodgson, which had already appeared in 1829 in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. III), also the Tunku by Soobajee Bapoo, being a Reply to the Wujra Soochi, 1839. A. Weber, “Über die Vajrasūcī” (ABA 1859, p. 205 ff., and Indische Streifen, I, 186 ff.). Cf. also B. H. Hodgson, Essays on the Languages, Literature and Religion of Napāl and Tibet, London 1874, p. 126 ff.; *E. Burnouf*, Introduction à l’histoire du Bouddhism Indien, 2ième éd., Paris 1876, p. 192 f., and *S. Lévi*, JA 1908, s. 10, t. XII, p. 70 f. [^2): In the same way in Kumāralāta’s Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā (“Sūtrālaṃkāra” No. 77) the Brahmanical system is refuted by quotations from the law-book of Manu.

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published a translation of this work, as far back as the year 1829, and L. Wilkinson edited the text in 1839, they were quite charmed with the democratic spirit with which the author defends the equality of all classes of men, "as they are equal as regards joy and sorrow, life, intellect, profession and trade, death and birth, fear and sexual love." For the sake of the quotations from Brahmanical texts, if on no other grounds, this work would be of great importance in the history of literature, if only we had any certain data about the author and the date of the work. There are some serious objections to ascribing the authorship to Aśvaghoṣa. The Vajrasūcī is not enumerated either by I-tsing or in the Tibetan Tanjur among the works of Aśvaghoṣa; and in the catalogues of the Chinese Tripiṭaka a Vajrasūcī, which is said to contain "a refutation of the four Vedas," and which was translated into Chinese between 973 and 981 A.D., is ascribed to a man named Dharmakīrti.¹

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¹ Bunyiu Nanjio, *Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripiṭaka*, No. 1303. Chinese *Fa-shang* is the translation of Sanskrit Dharmakīrti. For the philosophical work Mahāyāna-Śraddhotpāda, which has been erroneously ascribed to the great Aśvaghoṣa, see below in the chapter on "The Masters and Poets of the Mahāyāna."

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Among the lyrical poems which are ascribed to Aśvaghoṣa, the only one we know is the Gaṇḍīstotra-Gāthā, which A. von Staël-Holstein² has attempted to reconstruct in the Sanskrit original on the basis of the Chinese transliteration. It is a beautiful poem, worthy of Aśvaghoṣa both in form and contents.

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² Bibliotheca Buddhica XV, St. Petersburg 1913. Cf. F. W. *Thomas* in *JRAS* 1914, p. 752 f.

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The scanty fragments, which are all that is left of his Śāriputra-Prakaraṇa show us that as a dramatist too, Aśvaghoṣa was a worthy predecessor of Kālidāsa.³ This drama treats of the conversion of Śāriputra and his friend Maudgalyāyana, which is already related in one of the most beautiful stories in the Mahāvagga of the Vinayapiṭaka.¹

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³ H. *Lüders* (*Das Śāriputraprakaraṇa*, ein Drama des Aśvaghoṣa, in SBA 1911, 388 ff.) discovered these fragments in palm leaf MSS. from Turfan. It is uncertain whether the fragments of two other Buddhist dramas discovered by *Lüders* (Königlich Preussische Turfan-Expeditionen, Kleinere Sanskrit-Texte I, Berlin 1911) were written by Aśvaghoṣa. For further information on this matter, see Vol. III in the chapter on the drama.

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¹ See above, p. 28. The disciples are called Sāriputta and Moggallāna in Pāḷi.

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Chinese authors also ascribe to Aśvaghoṣa a work entitled “Sūtrālaṃkāra” which was translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva in about 405 A.D., but which was really written by Aśvaghoṣa’s junior contemporary Kumāralāta, and which, in Sanskrit, bore the title Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā or Kalpanālaṃkṛtikā. We glean this from the fragments of the work, which H. Lüders discovered in the finds of manuscripts in Turfan.² Valuable though these fragments are, they are unfortunately so few in number, that even now we can only judge the work on the strength of the French translation of the Chinese version.³ The Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā is a collection of pious legends after the manner of the Jātakas and Avadānas, and they are told in prose and verse in the style of ornate poetry. Some of the legends are old acquaintances, for instance that of Dīrghāyus (“Prince Live-Long”) and that of King Śibi. An old parable, which appears already in the Tipiṭaka, namely, that it is as difficult to be reborn as a human being, as for a one-eyed tortoise to put its neck into the hole of a yoke cast into the ocean, is several times met with in this work, and one of the tales (No. 38) has been invented for the special purpose of elucidating this parable.¹ Other legends breathe rather the spirit of the Mahāyāna, or at least reveal a Buddha-worship which is more on the side of the Mahāyāna. An instance is No. 57, which is at the same time one of the most beautiful legends in the collection.

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² H. Lüders, Bruchstücke der Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā des Kumāralāta (Kön. Preuss. Turfan-Expeditionen, Kleinere Sanskrit-Texte II), Leipzig 1926. Both Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā and Kalpanālaṃkṛtikā appear as titles in the colophons. Both adjectives mean the same, and it is probable that Dṛṣṭānta-paṅktiḥ followed after them, so that the meaning of the title is: “A Series of Examples adorned by Poetic Invention.” See *Lüders*, l.c., pp. 19, 26, and S. *Lévi* in JA, t. 201, 1927, p. 95 ff. The Chinese did not understand the somewhat extraordinary title, and (owing to the word alaṃkṛtikā) made a “Sūtrālaṃkāra” out of it. *Lüders* (l.c.) has advanced the hypothesis “that Aśvaghoṣa did actually write a work entitled Sūtrālaṃkāra, which was not translated into Chinese, but soon got lost, and was subsequently confused with the Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā which was known by the similar sounding title Chuang-yen-lun=Alaṃkāraśāstra.” I am not convinced that this is the solution of the riddle. S. *Lévi* (l.c., p. 126 ff.) tries another solution and thinks it still possible that Aśvaghoṣa may be the author of the work.

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³ *Sûtrâlaṃkâra* traduit en français sur la version chinoise de Kumārajīva par *Éd. Huber*, Paris 1908. Cf. *La Vallée Poussin* in Le Muséon, N. S. X, 1909, 86 ff.

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¹ Cf. *Winternitz* in WZKM 27, 1913, 43 ff.

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A man comes to the monastery, and desires to be admitted into the order. The disciple Śāriputra examines him, and finds that the man can-not claim to have done even the slightest good deed in any of his existences throughout æons, and he therefore declares him unworthy of being admit-ted into the order. Weeping, the man leaves the monastery. Then he meets Lord Buddha himself, whose heart is full of pity, and who desires to convert that man "like a mother, who loves her son." He lays his hands on the head of the rejected one, and asks: "Why do you weep?" The man tells him that Śāriputra has rejected him. Then the Buddha comforts him "with a voice that sounded like distant thunder," and declares that Śāriputra is not omniscient. The Lord himself brings the man back into the monastery, and before the assembled monks he tells of the Kar-man, the good deed which has entitled the man to liberation. Once in a former birth this person was a poor man, wandering about on the wooded hills to gather wood, when a tiger rushed upon him. Full of terror, he cried: "Honour to the Buddha!" For the sake of these words, the man shall participate in liberation. Buddha himself ordains him as a monk, and he soon becomes an Arhat.²

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² Another example of genuine Mahāyānistic Buddha-Bhakti is No. 68, where Gautamī attains Nirvāṇa through the grace of the Buddha, whereupon she actually wor-ships him. Mortals and gods also hasten to worship the Buddha (and also Buddha's mother).

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According to Hsüan-Tsang,³ Kumāralāta was the founder of the Sautrāntika school, and came from Taxila. In the work itself, the masters of the Sarvāstivādins are honoured, and many of the stories in the Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā are taken from the Canon of the Sarvāstivādins.¹ King Kaniṣka plays a part in two narratives, and he appears as a king of a past age.² Hence the work must have been written some considerable time after the death of Kaniṣka, and the poet could not have lived earlier than the end of the second century, when Aśvaghoṣa was already a very old man.³ As far as we are able to glean from the few fragments extant, the language of the work is perfectly correct Sanskrit, and there are seldom deviations from grammar. It is a curious thing that, in one passage,⁴ there are two Āryā verses in Prākrit in the midst of the Sanskrit verses. At all events it is very regrettable that we no longer possess the greater portion of the Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā in the original. It is not only in itself a work of literary distinction, the merits of which (as Lévi rightly remarks) are still recognisable even after two processes of translation; but also from the point of view of the history of ancient Indian literature and culture, its importance should not be undervalued, for it mentions the epics Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa, it confutes the philosophical doctrines of Sāṃkhya and Vaiśeṣika and the religious views of the Brahmans and Jains, and it contains all kinds of references to script, art and painting.

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³ *Si-yu-ki*, transl. by *S. Beal*, II, p. 302 f. Cf. *Lüders*, l.c., p. 21. According to *K'ouei-Ki*, a pupil of Hsüan-Tsang, Kumāralāta was called "master of parables." Cf. *Lévi*, l.c., p. 95 f. "Kumāralabdha" is only a wrong retranslation of the Chinese name given for Kumāralāta. See *Lüders*, l.c., p. 20.

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¹ Cf. S. *Lévi* in JA 1908, s. 10, t. XII, 91 ff., 184. *Huber* (in BEFEO, 4, 1904. pp. 709 ff.) has traced three stories in the Divyāvadāna. The Sautrāntikas originated with the Sarvāstivādins, and it is therefore no contradiction for Kumāralāta, as a Sautrāntika, to honour the Sarvāstivāda teachers. (Cf. *Lüders*, l.c., p. 22.)

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