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Works by Aśvaghoṣa
The Awakening of Faith: Attributed to Asvaghosha (Essentials of Mahayana Buddhism) (1967) 116 copies
Buddhist Mahayana texts 3 copies
Buddha's Leben : ein altindisches Heldengedicht des 1. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. = Aśvaghosa's Buddhacaritam (1999) 3 copies
The Saundarananda of Asvaghoṣa 2 copies
Selections from Buddha 2 copies
Buđenje vjere u Mahayanu 1 copy
Awakening Of Faith. The 1 copy
Soûtra de l'Eveil parfait : et Traité de la Naissance de la foi dans le Grand Véhicule (Trésors du bouddhisme) (2005) 1 copy
Fifty Verses on Lamas 1 copy
Buddhacaritam (2 vols) 1 copy
Die Vajrasûcî des Açvaghosha 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Aśvaghoṣa
- Other names
- Asvaghosa
- Birthdate
- 80 (approx.)
- Date of death
- 150 (approx.)
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- India
- Birthplace
- Saketa, India
- Occupations
- Buddhist philosopher
poet
Members
Reviews
Lists
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 36
- Members
- 367
- Popularity
- #65,579
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 3
- ISBNs
- 29
- Languages
- 6
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" 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.… (more)