EDITOR'S PREFACE.
xvii
Ârya Sûra, being identical with Asvaghosha, the author of the Buddhakarita, would have lived in the first century of our era. He is mentioned as a great authority on metres (Târanâtha, p. 181), and he certainly handles his metres with great skill. But dates are always the weak point in the history of Indian Literature. Possibly the study of Tibetan Literature, and a knowledge of the authorities on which Târanâtha relied, may throw more light hereafter on the date of Sûra and Asvaghosha.
F. Max Müller.
Oxford, October, 1895.
