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ASVAGHOSA'S KAVYAS : AN ĀLANKĀRIKA APPRAISAL
Biswanath Bhattacharya
Ašvaghoşa is the earliest kaown poet and dramatist of the ornate Sanskrit literature. On palaeographic grounds he can be placed safely about 100 A.D. which commensurates well with the accepted date of the Kuşāņa king Kaniska (ca. 78-150 A.D.).
Asvaghoşa professes himself to be a preacher-kavi and has to his credit four nirvāņa-kavyas of which two are sravya mahā-kāvyas (Kunstepen), viz., the Buddha-carita and the Saundara-Nand, the third is a dřsya prakaraña (a kunstdrama dealing with the bourgeois lise), viz , the Sāriputraprakaraṇa, and the fourth is a drśya pataka (a kunstdrama on the royal or aristocratic life), viz., the Rāstrapāla-Dāțaka.
of the above four missionary kāvyas the Buddha-carita treats of the whole biography of the Buddha beginning with his birth and ending in his death and the division of his relics. The story is depicted on a gigantic canvas of 28 cantos to touch upon briefly all possible aspects of the life of the Buddha. This racy account concentrates chiefly on the mor3 or less matter-of-fact narration in the true Epic style and there is not enough scope for the leisurely elaboration of the individual facets and the display of the secular elements. This biography lacks that mellifivus felicity wnich graces the later and consummate product Saundara-Nanda.
The Buddha-carita is followed by the Saundara-Nanda which deals with the conversion of the Buddha's half-brother Nanda and thus dilates upon a particular episode of the Buddha's life. The initiation of Nanda has been elaborated in the Saundara-Nanda, a florid epic of full 18 cantos overladen with lavish 'lalita' elements.
After the above two ornate epics comes the Śāriputra-prakaraṇa which deals with the initiation of Sāriputra and Maudgalyāyana. This single episode of the Buddha's biography has been amplified with ample historical imagination and retold under the ornate garb of a typical 'social drama' (= prakarana) of 9 Acts. This drama strikes a new note in so far as the Buddha is shown here as initiating two persons outside his pre-pravrajyā family. Here too we find plenty of popular elements in the form of a het. aera heroine, a jester and a wily villain and appropriate śộngāra scenes.
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