Ashvaghosha

Ashvaghosha 

Years of birth and death unknown. Indian poet who lived about the second century. He wrote in Sanskrit. Born in Ayodhya (modern Oudh) into a Brahman family. His narrative poem Buddhacarita, on the life of Buddha, contains 28 songs in the Chinese and Tibetan translations (only 13 ½ songs have been preserved in the original Sanskrit version). The theses of Buddhist philosophy are set forth in the narrative poem Saundarananda. The drama Shariputrakarana, only fragments of which have been discovered, adheres strictly to the canons of dramaturgy as expounded in the Bharatiyanatyashastra. The Sutralankara, which has been attributed to Ashvaghosha, has survived in a Chinese translation; this is a collection of didactic legends in both prose and poetry.

WORKS

Zhizn’ Buddy. Translated by K. Bal’mont. Moscow, 1913.

REFERENCE

Dasgupta, S. N., and S. K. De. A History of Sanskrit Literature, vol. 1. Calcutta, 1947.