I’ve beeen on something of an Aśvaghoṣa kick for the last couple of weeks. I picked up the Clay Sanskrit Library’s Life of the Buddha (Buddhacarita) translated by Patrick Olivelle and published in 2009. This is Aśvaghoṣa’s biography of the Buddha, beginning with his descent from the Tuṣita Heaven into the womb of Queen Maya until his death. I followed that with Handsome Nanda, in which Aśvaghoṣa details the reluctant conversion of Nanda, the Buddha’s half-brother. Linda Covill did the Clay Sanskrit Library’s translation of Handsome Nanda. It was published in 2007.
The Life of the Buddha offered a number of tidbits I wanted to keep here. For example, why Queen Maya died seven days after the birth of Siddhārtha:
But when queen Maya saw the immense might of her son, like that of a seer divine,
she could not bear the delight it caused her; so she departed to dwell in heaven.
Life of the Buddha, p43
Then there’s Aśvaghoṣa’s explanation for Rāhula’s name. Traditionally, it is said the Buddha named his son Rāhula because his son was a fetter or chain to hold him back from the path to enlightenment. Aśvaghoṣa instead suggests Rāhula’s grandfather named him:
Then in time Yashodhara, the “bearer of fame,” bearing alluring breasts and bearing her own fame, begot a son for Śuddhodana’s son, a son who had a face like Rahu’s foe, a son who was, indeed, named Rāhula.
Life of the Buddha, p53
As Olivelle explains in the notes: Rahu was the celestial demon responsible for the eclipses of the sun and the moon.
I was also caught by this reference to escaping a burning house, which plays such a large role in the Lotus Sutra. At this point Siddhārtha has asked his father to allow him to become an ascetic:
To his son making such a hard request, the king of the Śākyas made this response:
“Withdraw this your request, it is inordinate;
An extravagant wish is improper and extreme.”
Then that one, mighty as Meru, told his father:
“If that’s not possible, don’t hold me back;
for it is not right to obstruct a man,
Who’s trying to escape from a burning house.”
Life of the Buddha, p141
Another interesting aspects of Olivelle’s translation is his decision not to translate the word dharma.
One departure from my other translations of Sanskrit texts concerns the pivotal concept of dharma. In my other translations I have regularly translated all Sanskrit terms, including dharma. In Aśvaghoṣa’s vocabulary and argument, however, dharma is used deliberately with so many meanings and nuances that it would have been futile to capture these varying significations in the translation; English does not have a sufficiently rich vocabulary for this purpose. Therefore, I have kept the words dharma and its opposite a/dharma in the translation, inviting thereby the reader to see the different contexts and meanings of this central term.
Olivelle says in his Introduction:
It is within this context of inquiry and debate that we must see the controversies surrounding dharma. Aśvaghoṣa presents the arguments from the Buddhist and the Brahmanical sides as a controversy centered on the correct definition of dharma. It is not so much that some definitions of dharma are considered false. Aśvaghoṣa presents the array of meanings in which his interlocutors used the term, all of them legitimate at some level. What he wants to emphasize, however, is that no dharma can prevent the pursuit of the highest dharma, the dharma that Siddhārtha pursues, the dharma that he preaches once he has become the Buddha. Lower level conceptions of dharma cannot be obstacles on the path to the highest dharma, the “true dharma” of Buddhism called saddharma.
And, of course, it is the Saddharma which is revealed in the Saddharma Pundarika – the Wonderful Law of the Lotus Flower Sutra.
Tomorrow: The Training of Nanda
