Life of the Buddha

Clay Sanskrit Library

by Ashvaghosha, Patrick Olivelle (Translator)

The Buddhist monk Ashva.ghosha composed Life of the Buddha in the first or second century CE probably in Ayodhya. This is the earliest surviving text of the Sanskrit literary genre called kavya and probably provided models for Kali.dasa's more famous works. The most poignant scenes on the path to his Awakening are when the young prince Siddhartha, the future Buddha, is confronted by the reality of sickness, old age, and death, while seduced by the charms of the women employed to keep him at home. A poet of the highest order, Ashva.ghosha's aim is not entertainment but instruction, presenting the Buddha's teaching as the culmination of the Brahmanical tradition. His wonderful descriptions of the bodies of courtesans are ultimately meant to show the transience of beauty.

Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation

For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http: //www.claysanskritlibrary.org

Genres: Buddhism, Religion, Poetry, Philosophy, Classics, India, Biography

558 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 100

About the author

See also: Aśvaghoṣa

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Life Of The Buddha In The Clay Sanskrit Library

Between 2005 -- 2009, the Clay Sanskrit Library engaged in the ambitious project of publishing titles from the flowering of Sanskrit beginning at about the time of the Common Era. The series, modeled on the Loeb Classical Library, was sponsored by John Clay (1934 -- 2013), who had studied Sanskrit in his youth before going on to a successful career in global investment banking. The series consists of 54 books of poetry, drama, novels, and philosophy. Each pocket-sized book includes the Sanskrit text together with the English translation on facing pages. These works are a valuable resource for learning about a culture still too-little appreciated in the West.

This book in the series, "The Life of the Buddha" was published in 2008 and dates from the first or second century A.D. The author, Ashva-ghosha, had been born a Hindu and had studied Hindu texts before converting to Buddhism and becoming a monk. His "The Life of the Buddha" is a lengthy epic poem, the first of its kind in Sanskrit. The Clay Sanskrit Library translation is by Patrick Olivielle, Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions at the University of Texas at Austin. Olivielle also wrote the introduction to this volume together with endnotes and a glossary of the many names that appear in the poem.

Ashva-ghosha's poem draws on Buddhist Scriptures but is a work of literature of its time rather than a canonical text. The poem consists of 24 cantos, but only the first 13 cantos and part of the 14th canto have survived in the original Sanskrit. The remainder of the poem has survived in Chinese or Tibetan translations. Olvielle's translation covers only the Sanskrit original with a brief synopsis of the additional ten cantos at the end of the book.

The book describes the birth of the Buddha. his early life and marriage, and his discovery as a young man of the realities of old age, sickness, and death. It shows him assuming the life of a mendicant and studying with various teachers until he gradually develops his own understanding. The translation ends in this volume with the Buddha rejecting the temptations of Mara and attaining Enlightenment while meditating under the Bodhi tree.

I was interested in reading this poem because I have studied Buddhism for many years. Ashva-ghosha combines Hindu and Buddhist elements in his poem. The book shows the resistance young Siddhartha encountered when he determined to become a mendicant in search of the meaning of old age, sickness, and death. Many scenes of the poem show the young man engaging in lengthy religious discussions with his father, his father's religious advisors, and other kings and other seekers trying to dissuade him from his course. Broadly, they argue that there is a time and place for asceticism, but not for the young. The interlocutors urge young Siddhartha to remain with his father and his wife, to enjoy life and to rule the kingdom and to defer the ascetic quest until old age. Siddhartha resists these arguments and resolutely defends his course of action. The discussions become heated and some readers may remain unconvinced by Siddhartha's chosen course and be more sympathetic to the arguments of his interlocutors.

The poem includes many allusions to Hindu mythology which work both to relate Buddhism to its predecessors and to show how Buddhism differed. The notes and glossary in this book help the reader understand the references in the text. At the time the poem was composed, Buddhism and Hinduism were competing for adherents in India. Olivelle's introduction helps the reader understand how the poem's author and his likely audience saw the relationship between the two religions. Ashva-ghosha probably had the goal of showing Buddhism as an outgrowth of Hinduism and, thus, trying to bring the two religions together.

Probably as a result of this goal, Ashva-ghosha's poem emphasizes the supernatural parts of the story of the Buddha's life and Enlightenment. The Buddha becomes almost a god in this telling. The supernatural elements are far from absent in the Buddhist Scriptures I have read. But these early Scriptures also show a human, if gifted and special Siddhartha, who valiantly works and prevails to reach Enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.

This poem also is blunt and uncompromising in its rejection of pleasure and especially in its rejection of sexuality, even though the life of the senses frequently is described in beautiful terms. Many readers will be struck by the anti-sexual tone of the work. The rejection of sexuality is at its strongest in Canto 11, "Condemnation of Passion". The following Canto, "Meeting with Arada" includes a long, difficult description of the Buddha's meditative attainments through the Jahnas and of how he passed beyond his predecessors by rejecting the doctrine of the soul.

Olivelle's translation is in unrhymed verse in stanzas usually of four to five lines. The translation is accessible and lyrical and captures the beauty of the world of sense and the world of family life that young Siddhartha abandons and leaves behind.

I enjoyed this poem as a work of literature and as a work which showed how Buddhism developed and was viewed at a particular moment. There have been many other literary treatments of the life of the Buddha over the centuries in both verse and prose. I was reminded, for example, of Sir Edwin Arnold's (1832 -- 1904) epic poem "The Life of the Buddha" (1879), a work which for years helped introduce many Westerners to Buddhism. The Clay Sanskrit Library has done a service in making this and many other Sanskrit writings available to a wide audience.

Robin Friedman

[Mark Surya]

It's a classical Sanskrit poem. As Eliot Weinberger observes in his most recent book, for whatever reason, Sanskrit poetry has never really found it's style in English translation, the way that other Asian languages have---Japanese and Chinese for sure, but also Tamil, etc. So I was under no illusion that I was going to be reading a masterwork of poetry here. Olivelle's translation is pleasant, clear in it's imagery and easy to read. That's basically everything you want out of famously interminable Sanskrit poetry.

My interest in Asvaghosa was threefold: 1) as someone who was raised a Hindu, Sanskrit is for me (as it is for most people) absolutely tied up with the philosophy and culture of that faith. The sheer novelty of reading a Buddhist text in Sanskrit---and knowing that Asvaghosa is typically considered the *first* great Sanskrit poet, preceding the far more reknowned Kalidasa---was intriguing, something like what reading an ancient gospel of Christ written in Hebrew might be. There's something eerie about reading older Indian Buddhist texts in general, but particularly those in Sanskrit---something like feeling the aftermath of war when standing in a cleared field where a city stood. Buddhism is, even now, largely gone from India; but by the end of this text the Emperor Ashoka has declared it the new state faith. The gap terrifies.

2) B.R. Ambedkar, the drafter of India's constitution and the leading light of the Dalit movement, based his own telling of the Life of Buddha squarely on this text. This is intriguing. As Olivelle states in his introduction, Asvaghosa himself is most definitely a Brahmin, and is interested largely in reclaiming the Brahminical tradition in light of Buddhism (as a result, the Buddha actually does begin to bear a resemblance to Christ here in a significant way: he appears as the fulfillment *and* repudiation of the Brahminical faith). A text attempting to preserve in some way the Brahminical tradition becoming a source text for the most radical interpretation of The Dhamma to be crafted, one distinctly anti-Brahminical in aim, method, and goal; wild.

3) I just really love the story of the Buddha, and I will read it in any way it comes to me.

So, keeping in mind my interests, this is what I got from this.

1) It's Sanskrit poetry. I was surprised at how obviously this language, a largely *created* language for a hierarchical elite (a kind of country club Esperanto), maintained a literary tradition even when it expressed ideology not sanctified by that elite. Kalidasa has read his Asvaghosa. I think A.K. Ramanujan has observed that the typical Indian method of arguing against a position is not to mention the opponent's view at all, but to raise your argument and only subtly allude to the one you're attempting to dismantle. From that, I'm not sure I can read the later Sanskrit (Hindu) poets the same way, knowing the degree to which they must have been familiar with Buddhist arguments from this text. The other strange thing is, of course, how largely the early world of Buddhism is shared with what he now call Hinduism; not just the Brahminical references that Asvaghosa includes, but the general themes, settings, and mythology.

2) The source for the radical anticaste Buddha that Ambedkar has is largely not here. The Buddha is, of course, *always* nominally against status by birth, etc, and that's no different here. But in his desire to demonstrate that the Buddha's philosophy is the "jewel" of the intellectual class---as Ambedkar says, "who are, unfortunately, the Brahmins"---the Buddha and his Dhamma comes off largely conciliatory towards *Brahmins themselves*, even as he abandons and dismantles their philosophy and arguments one by one. Coming in with the galactic reach, I'll say that in 2017 America this seems very familiar, where people espouse what might seem like "antiwhite" antiracist thought rather often largely because it's been made to be as accessible as possible to the vast majority of "white" people...the issue isn't neccessarily with the thought in both cases (the Buddha's Dharma and popular antiracism), but one can hardly call it radical when it desperately needs (and needed) to be. I'll admit I was disappointed by this aspect of the text, but on the other hand it's my own fault: my expectations were anachronistic and hopeful. Asvaghosa's concern is with theology and practice, not philosophy.

3) The Sanskrit text is actually missing the last 14 chapters. As a result we get pulled out of the narrative right as The Buddha is having his awakening, which is, you know, a massive historico-religio cockblock. Olivelle summarizes the last 14 chapters, so you can get a good sense of how the text was going to proceed---through the Buddha's establishing of the Sangha, to his death, to the Emperor Ashoka converting to Buddhism and establishing it as state religion. I have to find one of the Chinese or Tibetan recensions of this to actually read it, but there are some intriguing things I can glimpse about the story through that. For one, despite the Buddha actually going to heaven to convert his birth mother, the story apparently never comes back around to the Buddha reengaging with his abandoned wife and son: typically Indian, dude comes back, makes up with his dad, and shit's solid. This is mostly disappointing because his wife's monologue when the Buddha abandons her is one of the stunning pieces in this poem, thematically indispensable and powerfully done. The other strange thing is ending the text with Ashoka's conversion. In the entirety of the text we have, the Buddha is explaining to us why, in our practice, we need to cut *all* fetters of sense attachment, and why that can't be done when one has any attachment to "the world". The story opens with a prince arguing that one must be an ascetic to practice Dhamma, giving up the world because the royal life will by necessity ensnare him; it ends with a literal conqueror adapting the Dhamma in his royal life and succeeding. The gap between those two is not something that Olivelle really explains in any of his notes.

[Nikhil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very interesting text coming out of the intellectual milieu of turn of the millennia India. At the time, the changing material structures of society that led to greater social stratification and more complex societies and states resulted in religious and intellectual turmoil as the existing religious and intellectual traditions proved insufficient to assuage the questions of the day. In other words, if society has changed so that now your not in life is to be ordered to break rocks or chop trees all day while someone else lives in a palace you want to know why.

The Vedic tradition at the time was unable to answer these questions. Killing ever more animals while chanting in an indecipherable language (old Indo Iranian) did not explain a lot. Aa bunch of shramanistc
Traditions emerged typically centered around asceticism or eroticism as ways to teach god outside of Vedic ritual. These traditions, which include Buddhism, Jainism, charvaka, sankhya, and others, exist in conversation and conflict with each other and more orthodox Vedic Brahmins for centuries.

The Buddha’s original teachings contained much that was transgressive: lay people can become monks and escape rebirth, so can women, sacrifice is unnecessary, etc. it became popular and was adopted by many powerful states, leading to contestation and confrontation with itself and with other traditions. A Buddhism that is a state religion cannot be the same as the Buddhism preached by the Buddha in poverty under the banyan tree.

Ashvaghosha’s life of the Buddha is of this later Buddhism. It is written in Sanskrit, so not intended for a mass audience. It is an inversion and updating of the Valmiki Ramayana. It positions the Buddha as the culmination and replacement of the divine figures of the Brahmanic tradition. In so doing, it makes of Buddhism an institution that can be aligned with state power and the existing social order. It retains some of the radical elements while softening them and packaging them for an orthodox audience. It is not clear to me that the Buddha would recognize it as Buddhism though.

As I have read more of early India, it is increasingly clear that Ambedkars view of Buddhism as anti-caste ideology that led to the creation of untouchables is fiction. Ambedkar is engaged in writing a counter national narrative in the 20th century to the Hindu national narrative increasingly dominant in India. There is much political value in what Ambedkar does even if, like the fiction of Hindutva, his narrative is also untrue.

[Mesoscope · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a serviceable bilingual translation of the classic early Sanskrit epic chronicling the life and career of Shakyamuni Buddha. The story I found a bit uneven - at times it was moving and beautifully told, and at other times it was strongly marked by the dramatic conventions of the genre, with which I had trouble connecting emotionally.

One can either portray Buddha as a human being, like ourselves, who, with determination and dedication, transforms his experience of life after long practice. Or one can portray him as born perfect, perfect in everything he did, and living his career as a kind of pedagogical display. I respond much more strongly to the former than the latter, while Ashvagosha goes full-on into the quasi-divination of Buddha that was increasingly common in his time.

Of the 28 cantos that were written, this translation covers the first 13 and a bit, which is all that remains to us in Sanskrit. The earlier E. H. Johnston translation provided the rest based on the extant Chinese and Tibetan sources. While I kind of understand why the translator would break off a third of the way into the canto describing the Buddha's enlightenment, the climax of the entire work, it rankles, and I consider it a bit of a discourtesy to the reader who buys this book in good faith, assuming it contains a story and not a fragment. I'm especially vexed by this decision because Olivelle did rely on non-Sanskrit sources to fill in the missing verses of the first canto. In my opinion, he definitely should have finished the fourteenth, or worked with a collaborator who could handle those languages.

Unless your interests are primarily philological, then, you are bound to be a bit distressed when you come to the end of this work, unless you have the complete Johnston translation available too, and can at least complete the first half.

[Suman Das · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read the bengali translated version of Buddhacharita. The translation was done by Rathindranath Tagore and it was published by Biswa Bharati. It is a nicely translated version of the story of Buddha from his birth to his enlightenment from the translation done by E B Cowell. It has taken help from tibetian version of buddhacharita for the missing parts. A must read for the readers who wants to know the life of Buddha.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful translation of this very important epic poem.

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm just not a fan of medieval Indian courtly poetry.

[Anjalica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

[Md Shariful Islam · Rating 5 out of 5]

গৌতম বুদ্ধকে আমরা বৌদ্ধ ধর্মের জনক হিসেবেই সাধারণত জানি। কিন্তু আসলে কি তাই? তিনি কি সত্যিই একটা ‘ধর্ম' প্রচার করেছিলেন? সত্যি বলতে তিনি কোনো ধর্ম প্রচার করেন নি এবং তাঁর সারাজীবনের সাধনায় কখনো তিনি মানুষ ব্যতীত অপর কোনো সত্ত্বার কথা স্বীকার করেন নি। তাহলে আজকে বৌদ্ধধর্ম বলতে যাকে জানি সেটা আসল কোথা থেকে? এই প্রশ্নের উত্তর কিছুটা হলেও পাওয়া যাবে এই বইটিতে।

বুদ্ধের সাধনা ছিল মূলত কয়েকটি মৌলিক প্রশ্নের উত্তর খোঁজার চেষ্টা। জরা, ব্যাধি, মৃত্যু এসব কেন মানুষের জীবনে আসে সেই প্রশ্নটারই উত্তর তিনি খুঁজেছেন সারা জীবন। নিজে এক সম্ভ্রান্ত ব্রাহ্মণ রাজার সন্তান হওয়ায় তখনকার বিশ্বাস অনুযায়ী পুনর্জন্মের ধারণার কথা তিনি শুনেছেন বারবার, কিন্তু জীবনকে যিনি দেখেছেন এক দুঃখের সমুদ্র হিসেবে তাঁর পক্ষে তো পুনর্জন্মের ধারণা স্বস্তিদায়ক নয়। আর এই জটিল পরিস্থিতিতেই তিনি ঘর থেকে বেড়িয়ে পড়েন, খোঁজার চেষ্টা করেন প্রশ্নগুলোর উত্তর। তো সেই জন্ম থেকে কিভাবে তিনি ‘বুদ্ধ'তে পরিণত হলেন সেটাই বইটির আলোচ্য বিষয়।

কবি অশ্বঘোষ এই বইটি লিখেছেন বুদ্ধের মৃত্যুর প্রায় চারশ বছর পরে যখন কখনও পরমসত্ত্বার কথা না বলা বুদ্ধকেই পরমসত্ত্বারূপে কল্পনা করে তাঁর পুজা শুরু হয়ে যায়। তাইতো বইটিতে তিনি বুদ্ধকে একজন ‘ভগবান’ হিসেবেই এঁকেছেন। কবি নিজেও ব্রাহ্মণ থেকে বৌদ্ধ হওয়ায়, বুদ্ধকে বর্ণনা করতে নানাভাবে এনেছেন হিন্দু পৌরাণিক চরিত্রগুলোকে। চৌদ্দটি সর্গে বিন্যস্ত বইটিতে অসাধারণ সব বাক্য আর উপমা ব্যবহার করে কবি এঁকেছেন বুদ্ধকে। আবার বুদ্ধের বাণীকে বা তাঁর দুঃখকে এত অসাধারণভাবে নিজের মধ্যে ধারণ করেছেন যে যখন তিনি লিখেছেন তখন মনে হয়েছে এসব যেন কবিরই মনের কথা। আর অনুবাদের কথাই আর কি বলব, সংস্কৃত এক কাব্যকে অসাধারণভাবে গদ্যে প্রকাশ করেছেন অনুবাদক। কিন্তু সেই গদ্য এত মাধুর্যযুক্ত যে মনেই হয় না গদ্য পড়ছি, মনে হবে এও তো আরেক কাব্য! যেমন অসাধারণ কবির উপমা আর বর্ণনা তেমনি অসাধারণ অনুবাদকের অনুবাদ। তাইতো প্রতিটা পৃষ্ঠাতেই মুগ্ধ হতে হয় যেমন বুদ্ধের চিন্তায় তেমনি লেখার মাধুর্যে।

[Drew Tschirki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book, beautiful poetry that tells the life of the Buddha from birth to… almost enlightenment. Unfortunately the Sanskrit account of the enlightenment is not extant and so the text ends right at the climax! But I cannot fault the book for missing parts that haven’t existed for a thousand or more years.

It is clear that the Buddha’s life, rejection of dharma for Dharma, and the pursuit of liberation is the culmination of the Brahman tradition. Each chapter / canto tells of a different event or trial for the Buddha to overcome on his way to enlightenment, but it is more than that. The book is for the reader to understand their own attachments to this world, or psychological or sense objects, or pleasures, and how to properly view them in relation to each other in order to become liberated. Obviously all of the Buddha’s past lives have led him to become the Buddha in his final life (this is evidently clear from the text as well) but at many points it seems as if the Buddha already was enlightened before becoming enlightened. Perhaps he intellectually knew the Dharma without entirely experiencing it, or perhaps it’s a tool to teach the reader the Dharma at each stage of the Buddha’s life.

I loved this book. It is highly readable, beautiful, relatable, intellectual, and universal.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

More interesting then I thought it was going to be. A pretty engaging look at the mythology behind the buddha while still being (relatively) grounded.
Decently sexist, classist, etc but what were you expecting from a book thousands of years old written in Sanskrit?
The translation was surprisingly good too, while I obviously don't read Sanskrit I found the verses to be well constructed and flow pretty well.

[louis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poetic ballad in the field of truth.

Siddhartha is a young man born into luxury, overwhelmed by pleasure and entertainment, which most humans desperately crave for.

He freed himself from this game by using powerful tricks: reflection, fasting, meditation.

[jt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didactic. Nice flow. But Uninspiring.

[Oakley C. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pious and underwhelming to the extreme.

[Dan Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone is so horny for the radiant body of the Buddha, that bull among men.

[Trevor Schaefer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in the version condensed by Edward Conze for the Penguin edition of Buddhist Scriptures (1959). It is a mere 47 pages long, easily read in one day, as I did. I would highly recommend reading it in one sitting, as it gives an excellent introduction to the 'historical Buddha', known as 'Shakyamuni', the 'Sage from the tribe of the Shakyas'. Like any scripture, it contains much legendary material, but it is also a very human story. The father of Siddhartha Gotama, the future Buddha, does not want him to become a monk, so he confines him in a pleasure palace full of sensuous dancing girls. But Siddhartha, "feeling like an elephant locked up inside a house, set his heart on making a journey outside the palace." What happens next is the beginning of his awakening.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was tough to get through because of all the cultural context required to understand the allusions. I want to follow them, so I follow the endnotes, but that just makes reading all the more difficult. I also am frequently bothered when I think I'm hearing Asvaghosa speak in place of the Buddha - though this is something that bothers me in many religious texts.

I think I would appreciate this text much more if I knew how to read Sanskrit. I feel like I'm reading Shakespeare in Spanish.

[Bella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beauty is.... Unless you experience how can you say it? When you say it, is it full ? May be I am borrowing from scriptures.. how can you attain the non-attainable ? How can you be on, when duality exists in you. for how long you can pretend to be ..... ?

[Casey Hadford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less about Buddhism or the Buddha and more about Asvaghosa's idea of the Buddha. By deifying him, he does him a disservice as he makes the Buddha's path to enlightenment seem incredibly effortless for him. Interesting read, but not the best choice if you want to learn about Buddhism.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

The true life story of Gautama Siddhartha, written by someone who was actually there.

First 14 ch of 28.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting, and gives a good idea of the Buddhist lifestyle and philosopy...

[Jessica Zu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patrick Olivelle's translation is beautiful, a joy to read. In my mind,it's much better than the Chinese translation 佛所行赞.

[John Yelverton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cute little tale about the life of Buddha while highlighting and proclaiming his bankrupt and hypocritical philosophy.

[Lulu]

First half of 2nd CE - epic


English translation of the Chinese version in 420 AD by Dharmakṣema: Samuel Beal, trans. The Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King. Oxford, 1883.