Aśvaghoṣa

I'd never heard of the Clay Sanskrit Library till a few weeks back. I don't even remember how I did stumble upon it, but once I did, I'm amazed at what it offers to the English-speaking world.

Modeled on the Loeb Classical Library, this collection takes classics of the Sanskrit tradition and makes them available to a general and scholarly audience. The books themselves are attractively made -- at least for a book geek such as myself.

The text, in this case Ashavghosha's "Life of the Buddha" show more is an amazing text from the first or second century C.E. Not at all being a Buddhist scholar, my only point of reference is Tezuka Osamu's graphic novelization of the Buddha's life. As such, I realize I'm not bringing any scholarly street cred here. Even comparing the two texts seems odd, so I'll try to avoid direct comparisons.

The translation works really well and in fact is much better than what I remember the Loeb translations to be. Looking at the actual contents of the book, I still find the Buddha to be far too remote a figure. His abandonment of his wife and child hit me the same way as John Bunyon's abandonment of his family in Pilgrim's Progess. Ashvaghosha's text also reminded me of the Christian Desert Fathers, with their detailed depictions of earthly delights followed by a searing denunciation of said delights. The rejection of familial responsibility made me very sympathetic to the Hindu counterarguments. I think I'm just more of a Gita person than a Buddha person. show less

Text composed by Aśvaghoṣa 2nd century C.E. preserved in Chinese and Tibetan translations, original Sanskrit partially lost. This text is from Baoyun's Chinese translation, 421 C.E. Treating the Buddha's life from birth to the distribution of his relics.

MAHAYANA

Translated from Chinese; attribution debated; influential across China, Korea, Japan. Conventional title variants: Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna; Dasheng qixin lun.