________________
KANISHKA
315
historiographers, Asvaghosha, the author of the Buddha Carita, lived in the time of the most famous of the Kushan kings, Kanishka. This work is a poem in pure Sanskrit, and in elegant style, on the life of the Buddha. It is addressed therefore, of course, not to brahmins as such, but to the laity. Now at what period in the history of Indian literature could such a poem have been composed, taking into consideration the facts as to the history of the language set out above in Chapter IX.? The oldest inscription in pure Sanskrit is of the middle of the second century A.D. Even if Asvaghosha's poem be the very earliest literary work written in regular Sanskrit for the use of the laity (and that is not at all impossible), it can scarcely be dated earlier. It is therefore improbable, if the authorities just referred to can be relied on, that the era used in the Kushana inscriptions can be fixed at any date so early as to be incompatible with the evidence as to the history of language, drawn from hundreds of inscriptions of equal genuineness.' On the other hand, if Kanishka be much earlier it is impossible that the poem can have been written at his court; but the evidence is such that we should,
i These facts have now been admirably collected and criticised in Professor Franke's Pali and Sanscrit (1902); a work, which, I regret to say, reached me too late to be utilised in Chapter IX.
? All the authorities on this question of the Kushan era are mentioned in the valuable article by Mr. Vincent Smith in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1903. He dates Kanishka from 125 to 153 A.D., using the Laukika Era. and giving special weight to the Chinese evidence.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
