59-05-032 Proceeding

127 Proceedings of the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Congress Statements and significance of the problems The Saundarananda-Mahākāvya is one of the two Sanskrit epics composed by Aśvaghoṣa 1 . It presents the story of Lord Buddha with a delicate style of poetry thorough the whole story. The poet describes the story of Nanda , Lord Buddha’s half brother as a main character from the beginning until the end of the story. It begins with portrayal of founding of the city Kapilavastu , the king, Tathāgata , and Nanda ’s ordain unwillingly, for he would not separate from his beloved wife, Princess Sundarī . Lord Buddha then contrived to relieve Nanda ’s grief by bringing him to see the heaven. They happened to see a female monkey blind in one eye. So Lord Buddha compared the beauty of the monkey with Princess Sundarī . Later, when they reached the heaven, Lord Buddha compared the beauty of the apsarās (aerial nymphs) with Princess Sundarī . Nanda replied that the blind monkey is much more ugly than his wife, but the apsarās are much more beautiful than her, and desired to have an apsarā as his wife. Lord Buddha told that he needed to practice meditation for getting anything as desired. When Bhikṣu Nanda industriously tried and practiced all the Buddha taught, his mind was steadfast, calm and steady, relieved erotic love, and ended his desire of apsarās. Finally, he attained enlightenment. This story of was composed after the legendary plot from an ancient time, was not an entire imagination of the composer. There was a description of the cities, families, and gameness, especially, suffering from love. But the true objective of the poet was to describe the hero’s behavior and practice until attained the ultimate goal, that is salvation. It consists of 18 chapters, with literary sentimentality, and has a good continuities. It clearly presents the 4 aims of life or puruṣārtha : kāma (acquirement of desire), artha (acquirement of wealth), dharma (discharge of duty), and mokṣa (final emancipation). 2 The poet use techniques of the insertion matters into the story, not only for entertainment, but for being useful from teachings of Buddhism and many other tidbits. For tidbits from this work, we must consider its history and the poet’s background. The biography of Aśvaghoṣa is unclear, most believed that he was a contemporary with King Kaniṣka of the Ku ṣ āṇa. So it is assumed that he had lived between 80 - 150 C.E. 3 He was born in a brahmin family and versed in theVedas. But later he truly believed inBuddhism 4 as seen fromhisworkswhich appeared Buddhistness clearly, as in the Buddhacarit , the Saundarananda , and the Vajrasūcī 5 . In 1 The First work of Aśvaghoṣa was the Buddha-Carita. The poet had added scenes in the Saundarananda, which had never been in the Buddha-carita. But some literature historians say that he first composed the Saundarananda, and later the Buddhacarita. Cited in: M. Winternitz, Ph.D. A History of Indian Literature Vol. II. (New York: Russell & Russell, 1985), 262. 2 Samniang Luemsai, Ph.D. Mahakab Saundarananda. (Bangkok: Foundation of Paetmuensiphanphrathammakhan, 2543), 6. 3 Patrick Olivelle, Suman Olivelle. Manu’s Code of law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 24. 4 Later, Aśvaghoṣa converted to Buddhism and ordained as Bhikṣu in Saravāstivāda, cited in: M. Winternitz, Ph.D. A History of Indian Literature Vol. II, 257. 5 Vajrasūcī was composed by Aśvaghoṣa with a clear attitude against the castes system of Brahmanism. Cited in: Ibid, 265.