Buddhakarita-kavya (sutra). Bunyiu Nanjio in his Catalogue of the Tripkaka, p. 308, states that it was composed by the Bodhisattva Asvaghosha, and translated into Chinese by Dharmaraksha, as early as A.D. 414-421. The Chinese translation, which must have been very free, has been rendered into English by Beal in the S. B. E., vol. xix. The date of Asvaghosha is difficult to settle, but he must certainly have lived before 400 A. D. If he was the Asvaghosha who occupies the twelfth place in the list of the Buddhist patriarchs, he would have died 332 A. D. But that list is of very doubtful value. Of the three Asvaghoshas mentioned by Taranatha, our Asvaghosha could only have been the first, and if so, he was the contemporary and spiritual adviser of Kanishka, that is to say, he lived in the first century A.D. 1[1] This, I must confess, seems to me as yet very doubtful. Professor Biihler will soon have the pleasure of reading that poem, as my old friend, Professor Cowell, to whom I lent the copy of the Paris MS., has with the help of other MSS. undertaken to edit it for the Anecdota Oxoniensia. It would thus seem that in this branch of literature also the Buddhists may claim an equal share with the orthodox Brahmans, at least in that period which I have ventured to call the Renaissance of Sanskrit Literature.
OXFORD, April 25, 1892.
- ↑ 1 See Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, ii. p. 412 ; Beal, S.B.E., xix. p. xxx ; Koeppen, Die Religion des Buddha, i. p. 388 ; Wassil- jew, Der Buddhismus, p. 75.
