Buddhacarita
Buddhacarita
Recasting the Buddha's life in the high literary register of Sanskrit court poetry, the text argues his renunciation of a princely life was not a rejection of worldly excellence but its deliberate, reasoned transcendence.
- first major Sanskrit court-poetry (kavya) treatment of a Buddhist subject
- renunciation framed as reasoned transcendence, not rejection, of worldly excellence
- only partially preserved in Sanskrit; reconstructed via Tibetan and Chinese
- traditional association with the Kushan court of Kanishka
An epic Sanskrit poem (mahakavya) narrating the Buddha's life from birth through enlightenment, composed by the monk-poet Ashvaghosha, credited with adapting the ornate conventions of Sanskrit court poetry to Buddhist subject matter for the first time. Only about half the original Sanskrit survives, with the remainder reconstructed from Tibetan and Chinese translations. Tradition associates Ashvaghosha with the court of the Kushan emperor Kanishka, though the exact patronage and place of composition are not firmly established. Its best-known episode narrates the four sights, an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a wandering ascetic, that the sheltered prince Siddhartha encounters on successive chariot rides outside his father's palace, each one eroding his contentment until the sight of the ascetic prompts his decision to renounce the throne.
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