Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c19.s2.25

c19.s2.25

Açvaghoṣa’s literary efforts on behalf of Buddhism extended also to the sphere of drama; fragments of his works are preserved to us, in sufficient extent to show that he was master of the technique of the art and that his drama already manifests most of the characteristics of the Indian theatre.¹ His lyrics were famous, and we possess in the *Gaṇḍistotragāthā*,² restored from Tibetan, a curious specimen of his literary genius. Of literary rather than philosophical interest is the complex question whether Aśvaghoṣa is really identical with the poet Mātr̥ceṭa, to whom I-Tsing attributes the *Catapañcācatanāmastotra*, or with Maticitra, author of a letter to a king Kanika, the question of whose identity with Kaniṣka is no less obscure. Fragments of Mātr̥ceṭa’s work are now in our possession, while his *Varṇanārhavarṇana* is preserved in Tibetan. Of the same type of elaborate Kāvya poetry is the *Jātakamālā* of Āryaśūra or Cūra celebrating the perfections of the Buddha.³