The Buddha-Carita or The Life of Buddha by Ven. Aśvaghoṣa

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5 promises to be of great help in restoring the many corrupt readings which still remain in our faulty Nepalese MSS. Only thriteen books of the Sanskrit poem claim to be Aśvaghoṣa’s composition; the last four books are an attempt by a modern Nepalese author to supply the loss of the original. He tells us this honestly in the colophon, — ‘having searched for them everywhere and not found them, four cantos have been made by me, Amtānanda, — the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth.’ He adds the date 950 of the Nepalese era, corresponding to 1830 a. d.; and we have no difficulty in idendifying the author. Rājendralāl Mitra in his ‘Nepalese Buddhist Literature’ mentions Amtānanda as the author of two Sanskrit treatises and one in Newārī; he was probably the father of the old paṇḍit of the Residency at Kāṭmāṇḍu, Guṇananda, whose son Indrānanda holds the office at present. Dr. D. Wright informs me that the family seem to have been the recognised historians of the country, and keepers of the MS. treasures of sundray temples. The four books are included in this translation as an interesting literary curiosity. The first portion of the fourteenth book agrees partly with the Tibetan and Chinese, and Amtānanda may have had access to some imperfect copy of this portion of the original; but after that his account is quite independent, and has no relation to the two versions. In my preface to the edition of the Sanskrit text I have tried to show that Aśvaghoṣa’s poem appears to have exercised an important influence on the succeeding poets of the classical period in India. When we compare the descriptions in the seventh book of the Raghuvasa of the ladies of the city crowding to see prince Aja as he passes by from the Svayavara where the princess Bhojyā has chosen him as her husband, with the episode in the third book of the Buddha-carita (ślokas 13-24); or the description’s of Kāma’s assault on Śiva in the Kumārasambhava with that of Māra’s temptation of Buddha in the thirteenth book, we can hardly fail to trace some connection. There is a similar resemblance between the description in the fifth book of the Rāmāyaṇa, where the monkey Hanumat enters Rāvaṇa’s palace by night, and sees his wives asleep in the seraglio and their various unconscious attitudes, and in the description in the fifth book of the present poem where Buddha on the night of his leaving his home for ever sees the same unconscious sight in his own palace. Nor may we forget that in the Rāmāyaṇa the description is introduced as an ornamental episode; in the Buddhist poem it an essential elelment in the story, as it supplies the final impulse which stirs the Bodhisattva to make his escape from the world. These different descriptions became afterwards commonplaces in Sanskrit poetry, like the catalogue of the ships in Greek or Roman epics; but they may very well have originated in connection with definite incidents in the Buddhist sacred legend. 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
6 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. 1 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 ‘alakāra-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 want) I have necessarily been left to my own resources, and I cannot fail to have sometimes missed my author’s meaning. Prāśulabhye phale mohād udbāhur iva vāmanaḥ; but I have tried to do my best, and no one will welcome more cordially any light which others may throw on the passages I have misunderstood. The edition of the original text was dedicated to my old friend Professor F. Max Müller, and it is sincere gratification to me that this translation will appear in the same volume with similar translations from his pen. Cambridge: Feb 1, 1894. E. B. C. 1 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 ‘tatraiva nāsīnam ṣim’ in XIII, 50. Professor Bühler would read ‘priyatanayas tanayasya’ in I, 87, and ‘na tatyāja ca’ in IV, 80.
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The Buddha-Carita or The Life of Buddha by Ven. Aśvaghoṣa

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