Buddhacarita by Ven Asvaghosa - Ancient Buddhist Texts

Buddha-carita, or Life of Buddha - 7
The Sanskrit MSS. of Nepal are always negligently transcribed and
abound with corrupt passages, which it is often very difficult to detect
and restore. My printed text leaves many obscure lines which will
have to be cleared up hereafter by more skilful emendations. I have
given in the notes to the translation some further emendations of my
own, and I have also added several happy conjectures which
continental scholars have kindly suggested to me by letter; and I
gladly take this opportunity of adding in a foot-note some of which I
received too late to insert in their proper places. 5
I have endeavoured to make my translation intelligible to the English
reader, but many of the verses in the original are very obscure.
Aśvaghoṣa employs all the resources of Hindu rhetoric (as we might
well expect if I-tsing is right in ascribing to him an ‘alaṅkāra-śāstra’),
and it is often difficult to follow his subtil turns of thought and
remote allusions; but many passages no doubt owe their present
obscurity to undetected mistakes in the text of our MSS. In the
absence of any commentary (except so far as the diffuse Chinese
translation and occasional reference to the Tibetan have supplied the
5 Dr. von Boehtlingk suggests ‘saujā vicacāra’ in VIII, 3, and ‘vilambakeśyo’ in
VIII, 21, — two certain emendations. Professor Kielhorn would read
‘nabhasy eva’ in XIII, 47 for ‘nayaty eva,’ and ‘tatrai
’ in
XIII, 50. Professor Bühler would read ‘priyatanayas tanayasya’ in I, 87, and
‘na tatyāja ca’ in IV, 80.