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Ashvaghosha: India’s Great Buddhist Poet

Broadcast on:: 09 Mar 2013
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In this week’s FBA Podcast, “Ashvaghosha: India’s Great Buddhist Poet” Dhivan introduces Ashvaghosha, the Buddhist poet of 2nd c. AD India. Two of his works survive: a poetic re-telling of the Buddha’s life-story (‘The Buddhacarita’ or ‘Acts of the Buddha’), and ‘Handsome Nanda’, about the conversion of the Buddha’s sensuous and wife-loving cousin to the Dharma.

Here Dhivan shares some of his own translations of Ashvaghosha from Sanskrit and Pali sources, in this accessible and humorous introduction to some fine Buddhist poetry.

This talk given at Cambridge Buddhist Centre, 20 August 2009, on the occasion of the launch of Urthona magazine, issue 26.

(upbeat music) - This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you and happy listening. - So Ash for Gosha, you may have heard the name, there is a project called the Ash for Gosha Project, running in India, funded by the Karanar Trust associated with the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, and the Ash for Gosha Project is involved with storytelling in villages in Maharashtra named after the poet. You might have heard the name Ash for Gosha in relation to a particular famous Buddhist text called the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana. In fact, this text is generally regarded now as not being by Ash for Gosha at all. It was probably composed in China. But the very fact that it was attributed to Ash for Gosha shows the fame and renown the poet enjoyed in centuries passed in the Buddhist world. Ratnagar was quite right, he's probably the most famous or rather best Indian Buddhist poet. Just as a poet, he's a recognised influence on Kali Dasa, who you may also not have heard of, but Kali Dasa is India's equivalent of Shakespeare, a great dramatist and poet, probably the greatest who wrote in Sanskrit. He lived in about the sixth century, so quite a long time, even before Shakespeare, but Kali Dasa has that stature. Ash for Gosha, perhaps not, but his Sanskrit is plain but very beautiful, and his poetry is right up there with great classics of world literature. He's not very well known for the reason that he wrote in a language which few of us speak, and although his works have been translated into English, they haven't been translated perhaps by people who are great at poetry. Sanskrit scholars aren't necessarily great at English poetry, so perhaps he hasn't yet found a vehicle that gets across the quality of his poetry. And one of my aims tonight is to try and to get across something of what's interesting about Ash for Gosha, even if the language doesn't quite manage to convey everything. Now, the reason that I personally managed to get interested in Ash for Gosha was through a phone and magazine. One day, these two books plumped into the Earthona inbox for review copies, these very smart little hardback books, published by the Clay Sanskrit Library, a venture by someone called John Clay, who used to study Sanskrit and then went on to make a lot of money in the aircraft industry. And in his retirement, wanted to go back to where he'd come from, and he sponsored a library which aims to produce 108 of these beautiful volumes of Sanskrit literature with Sanskrit and English on facing pages, rather like the Loeb classic library in Greek and Latin. And the idea is to make more popular and accessible the great works of Sanskrit literature. And it's been a great pleasure to write about these books for Earthona magazine. They're slap bang in the middle of what we're interested in, the arts from a Buddhist perspective. And in that sense, it was a great privilege to go and talk to the translators of these poems over in Oxford. One's Sri Lankan, he happened to be in Oxford, the other lives in Oxford. And we had a very happy couple of hours talking about Sanskrit and poetry. And I'm not going to talk about much about what we talked about, it's all in the magazine. So do take a look, if you get the chance. So, who was Ashvagoshan? Well, as is the case for very many figures in Indian history and literature, we know almost nothing about the person Ashvagoshan. All we know is the coliform from his works. Both of his great works end with the following little line. The work of the venerable monk and teacher, Ashvagoshan, of Sarqaita, the son of Suvarnabshi, the great poet, eloquent speaker, and of universal renown. I'm sure he didn't quite think that much of himself. It's probably an Indian way of putting things. So we know he was from the north Indian town of Sarqaita, his mother was called Suvarnabshi. And he was a Buddhist monk, as well as a poet. It's pretty obvious that he was a convert to Buddhism. His knowledge of Brahminical literature, the literature of Hinduism is obvious in what he writes. He often wants to show how Buddhism is superior to Hinduism. He's very familiar with the Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, with although vast cast of characters and events. And in fact, his poems, in a way, engage with those poems, again, to show how the Buddha was the culmination of Indian history and literature. So we know he was a Brahmin convert. He was a monk and a poet. Probably lived in the second century BC, but we're not even sure about that. Indian history is like a land of dream, where you can't really pin anything down. So to understand quite where he's coming from, we need to know a little bit about the history of India in the second century. It was an interesting moment in Indian history. North India was governed by King Kenishka, an emperor, who ruled not just North India, but an area right up into Asia. King Kenishka belonged to the Kushana dynasty. And these people, in a way, in their success, reflect a truth of Buddhism. In the second century BC, the Chinese emperor built a great wall to keep out uncivilized tribes. Those uncivilized tribes, not being able to raise China, had to go west. Going west, they displaced the Uaichi people. The Uaichi tribe had to come west and south. And several centuries later, they ended up in India, displacing the other people they displaced on the way. And they became the kings of India, the ruling dynasty of India. So originally Chinese, they ended up in India, ruling northern India, and embracing Buddhism. So King Kenishka became a Buddhist. So that was that to illustrate interdependence, of course. That was the Buddhist teaching. Perhaps that's why he became a Buddhist. Perhaps it was for other reasons. But it's him coming to the throne. King Kenishka came to the throne, initiated a great period of royal patronage of Buddhism. So it wasn't that Buddhism was the state religion, but the King favored Buddhism. It initiated the period of great Buddhist art. The caves that Ajanta were decorated, painted and carved at around that time. Some beautiful sculptures in the capital city of Mathura, where King Kenishka was based, were carved at that time. So it was a time of flourishing of Buddhism. And this is important because Ashvagosha, becoming a Buddhist at that time, didn't have to, as it were, fight his corner. Buddhism was favored by the king. It was well known in the country. And so as a convert to Buddhism, his job wasn't so much to present Buddhism as a religion that ought to exist. But his job was more simply to compare it to the main stream religions that were going on in North India at the time, which was, of course, the precursor to Hinduism, Vedic and Brahminical religions. So he's a proselytizer of Buddhism. But on the other hand, he doesn't have to fight too hard. And that's a perfect setup for great poems about Buddhism. But that's why the history is important to the poetry. And what we know of Ashvagosha's poetry is simply two long works. The word for poetry in Sanskrit is kavya. And the word for his two long works are maha kavya. Great poems. So he wrote two long poems. We might call them epic verse to them. But it's not epic in a sense of warriors and battles like Homer or Virgil's Ennead. It's more like poetry like Milton's Paradise Lost. If any of you have ever dipped into or read, Milton's Paradise Lost and enjoyed it, you will enjoy Ashvagosha. It's religious poetry on that level of depth and rigour, carried out over a long stretch. I mentioned before, Ashvagosha isn't a Mahayanaist. Mahayana Buddhism in the second century BC in India would probably have been quite a minority sport. Perhaps it was just getting going. Perhaps just a few monks in certain monasteries were inspired by this new idealism, this cosmic idealism of Mahayana Buddhism. None of that is to be found in Ashvagosha's poetry. His poetry reflects mainstream Buddhism much as it's preserved in the early scriptures. The Buddhism of the Buddha, we could say. But perhaps turned into a system of religion by several hundred years of monastic recitation and practice. So Ashvagosha was interested in popularizing mainstream Buddhism as it was taught by the Buddha. But he was clearly also an ambitious poet. He wished to excel as a poet, and so he set himself a challenge. And probably his first work was His Life of the Buddha, which is a natural place to start for a Buddhist poet perhaps, to write a life of the Buddha. This book's called "Buddha Charita," which we could just translate life of the Buddha. It also means in more flowery language, adventures of the awakened one. It was written in Sanskrit. It's the first Buddhist work to be written in Sanskrit. Prior to that, Sanskrit was reserved for Hinduism or what became Hinduism. And Buddhists would write in a less literary form of the language, not quite literary Sanskrit. So the fact that Buddhist Ashvagosha wrote in Sanskrit actually changed the face of Buddhism. It became acceptable for Buddhists to write in Sanskrit after Ashvagosha, which meant that Buddhist literature then was able to compete on the same level as the great literature of Hinduism. Perhaps because Ashvagosha was a Brahmin from that background, his Sanskrit was very natural. And it was his natural mode of expression. Only half of his life of the Buddha survives in Sanskrit, unfortunately, like a lot of Sanskrit works, it got lost, especially because Buddhism died out in India in the 12th century. Happily, the rest devised in Chinese and Tibetan translation. So you can read the whole lot. But the second half, one removed as it were. Buddha's character, life of the Buddha, is a devotional work. That's quite clear. Ashvagosha ends the poem with these verses. Why should it not be right in this world for wise religious men who know what he, that is the Buddha, did to present a thank offering to him who, for others good, underwent the greatest toil in his compassion and in his supreme knowledge of the disposition of men. Seeing that on earth, there is no danger like that of old age and death. And in heaven, like that of the fall they're from, what good man is to be so worshiped as he who ever recognized these two dangers of the universe. So long as birth exists, unhappiness is produced. And there is no bliss to compare with that a freedom from new existence. What good man, therefore, is to be so reverent as he who obtained this freedom and gave it to the world. Thus this poem has been composed for the good and happiness of all people in accordance with the sages, scriptures, out of reverence for the bull of sages, and not to display the qualities of learning or skill in poetry. That's translated into English from Chinese, from Sanskrit. So in the 1930s, by someone who preferred quite a Victorian mode of expression. So that's what we're up against with ash bhigoshya. But it gets across the devotional quality of his life of the Buddha. It's a retelling of the traditional sources. It's not meant to be a historical account of the Buddha. In fact, perhaps at the time everyone knew that we actually knew very little about the history of the Buddha. Perhaps the life of the Buddha was so well known in its traditional form that ash bhigoshya had no need to pretend he was writing a literal history of the Buddha. He changed all sorts of details to suit his poetic retelling. In a way, this is what poetry is particularly good at. When someone says they're going to write some poetry or read some poetry, you don't expect the fact. I think this is quite natural and important. If somebody says they're going to read some poetry, you'd expect things to be imaginatively retold. That's the whole point, to emphasize what was important at an emotional level, in heightened language. And that's just what ash bhigoshya did with the life of the Buddha. So the Buddha in ash bhigoshya's form isn't particularly human. He's not quite the Superman of Mahayana Buddhism, eternal, and not quite the same as you and I. But he's not quite an ordinary person, either. The Buddha of Buddha-charita is like him. It's as if he's got a cosmic destiny, which he's fulfilling, without having to work too hard at it. And that allows ash bhigoshya to retell the story. By, as it were, plugging the Buddha in or the prince, the Buddha to be into various situations and his destiny to unfold. So what we get is the traditional story in heightened language with an imaginative engagement, which brings out the emotional force of the story. Now, as Ratnagarbha mentioned, I've been attempting some translation of Buddha-charita, myself. I've been lucky enough to read some of this text with my Sanskrit teacher. And it led me to translate the whole of one kanto. The kanto concerned with the four sites. So an important part of the traditional story of the Buddha, just before he left home. In fact, ash bhigoshya only talks about three sites. We get old age sickness and death. And then there's an interlude. And before he meets the sage, the renunci. But that's allowed in poetry. So I thought I'd share a little bit from the Buddha to be's encounter with an old man. And you'll get a feel for how ash bhigoshya retells the story. The prince has ventured out of the palace for the first time. His father, the king, has made sure that there are no old people, ill people, or ugly people anywhere, so that the prince will not feel dismayed and will not leave home to become a renunciant tree seeker. His father, the king, of course, wants him also to become a king, to stay with the worldly life. But when the gods in the pure abodes gazed down and saw that city as blessed as heaven, they made an old man's likeness a device to prompt the royal scarms leaving home. The prince, at seeing the shadow of a man whose human form old age had overcome, could not take his eyes off him. Concerned in a gust, he asked his charioteer, dear driver of mine, just who is this man, his hair white, his hand knotted on a stick, eyes sunk beneath his brows, his body bent. Is this change in him natural, or by chance? When addressed like this, the charioteer, his judgment clouded by the gazing gods, forgot what he ought not have told the king's son and revealed what had been better kept hid. The slayer of beauty, sapping of strength, the womb of grief, and all pleasures dead end. The misting of memories, thief of sense. This is old age, and it has broken him. For even this man wants drank baby milk, and as time went by, he called on the ground. In the course of things, he grew into youth, a strong young man. Now he has reached old age. The king's son, slightly shaken and amazed at what he had heard questioned his driver. And will this curse infect me as well? The charioteer spoke what needs must be said. Though many years of healthy life may stretch ahead, times reach my lord will no doubt find you too. See how old age wrecks and ruins beauty. We all know this, and still we want to live. His mind made pure through virtue long ingrained. His good deeds heaped through countless lives and times. That great heart shook on hearing of old age, like a bull beneath a huge thunderclap. His eyes still fixed on that frail, aged man. He sighed a deep sigh and shook his head. He looked around at the rejoicing crowds and spoke these words in his perplexity. So without discrimination, old age destroys ambition, memory and good looks. Despite this, these people do not seem dismayed at their fate revealed here before their eyes. That's how it is. Dear charioteer, turn the horses around and drive a straight home. For how could there be pleasure in the park when the mind dwells on age and disaster? So, in that section, just the first sight, you get a sense of how Ashvagosha as it were heightened some sensual imagery in the traditional life of the Buddha. That's what his poetry particularly excels at. He spins it out, intensifies it, and draws the reader in to the traditional story. He makes up some details, which is another good thing that poets are allowed to do. When the Buddha has seen the third sight, a corpse, he goes back to his palace. No, actually, he's after he's seen the monunciant, I think, but before he's left home, he goes back to the palace, and his father has a last go at giving him so much sensual pleasure that he won't leave home, but the gods step in again, this cosmic death to me unfolding. And they make all these musicians fall asleep, all these women musicians who were supposedly entertaining the Buddha to be, so he won't leave home. Then Ashkenish to deities who practice the best allusterities became aware of his resolve. At once they made these young women secume to sleep, and in unsightly postures, positioned their limbs. One was reclining there, resting her cheek on her unsteady hand, tossing her loot adorned with gold leaf resting on a lap, as if in anger, though she loved it much. Others were a resplendent, lying down where they sat, bodies bent down by the weight of their breasts, embracing each other with entwined arms adorned with golden bracelets. One girl in deep sleep embraced her large loot, as if it were her girlfriend, and as she rolled, her gold chains shook her earrings in disarray on her face. Another girl was lying down, laying her drum between her thighs, the drum, the beautiful cord, slipping from her shoulder, like a lover lying exhausted, after making passionate love. But others, though their brows were pretty, and their eyes were large, displayed no beauty with their eyes closed, like lotuses with the flower buds clothes after the setting of the sun. Another girl, likewise, was lying there, her hair disheveled and hanging loose, her clothes and ornaments slipping down from her waist, and necklaces scattered, like a statue of a girl trampled by an elephant. Although gentle and endowed with beauty, others were snoring with her mouth as a gape, without any shame, and out of control, with limbs distorted and arms extended, sleeping in immodest pose. Others looked revolting, lying as if dead, their jewellery and their garlands fallen down, unconscious with eyes unblinking, the white gazing in a fixed stare, another was lying, as if he was drunk, mapped wide open and seliver oozing, legs wide open and genitals exposed, body distorted, lucking repulsive. So that put the Buddha off. (audience laughing) So, of course, the ashrigosh has made all this up, but it heightens the sense that the Buddha is, the Buddha to be, hasn't much to lose by going forth from home. The sensual imagery that we were just enjoying, the rich descriptions are, of course, how poetry works, it's not an abstract art form, involved in abstract ideas, it excels in concrete imagery. So, when the Buddha had left home, of course, what he supposedly did in the traditional life story is remove himself from this whole world of pleasure. So in terms of the poetry, ashtogation now has the challenge is of describing how the Buddha escaped from the life of pleasures, but by using poetry. And so moving on, here's a little bit of the condemnation of the life of passion, that the Buddha, before he was enlightened, he was getting his thoughts in order, he was expressing his resolve to King Bimbisara, who he'd met in Raja Griga. King Bimbisara was well known as a great disciple of the Buddha, as a story in a certain part of him seeing the Buddha before he was enlightened and being tremendously impressed by his good looks, his resolution, his mindfulness, so all these qualities the Buddha had before he was enlightened, and in Ashpagosh's version, King Bimbisara, so impressed by the prince, offens him half his kingdom, if he'll leave the renunciate life and join him in kingship, but the Buddha refuses, the Buddha to be refuses, saying things like, what man here, who self-possessed and wise, would delight in pleasures, araduously attained, and protected, pleasures that cheat you, and leave you again, much like something received on loan, what man who self-possessed with delight in pleasures, that are like torches of straw in this world, when pursued and grasped, they excite craving, but when left unabandoned, lead to grief, what man who self-possessed would delight in pleasures, that are like snakes, fierce and enraged, stung by them on the heart, men who aren't self-possessed, go to their death and obtain no relief, what man who self-possessed would delight in pleasures, that are like a skeleton of dry bones, even when enjoyed, men get no satisfaction, like a famished dog that's eating a bone, what man who self-possessed would delight in pleasures, that are like a raw flesh, baked being thrown, because they're like a king, a thief, water and fire, pleasures only give rise to suffering, what man who self-possessed would delight in pleasures that are like dangerous habitations, those dwelling in them, face misfortunes from all sides, at the hands of enemies, and kinsfunk, what man who self-possessed would delight in pleasures, that are like fruits at the top of a tree, people leap up up at them and come to utter ruin in mountains, forests, rivers and oceans. What man who self-possessed would delight in pleasures, that are in fact sinister enemies, for their sake, people here deliver their bodies to water, fire, and predatory beasts, and on and on, the Buddha makes very clear his own resolve, in these kinds of terms, through equally resonant images, ashvigotian managers to get across why the Buddha wasn't interested in the pursuit of pleasures anymore, which of course is a fundamental interest in the Hindu thought, as it were, the pursuit of pleasures in the next world. So everything was done, either sacrificial religion or aesthetic practice was done for the sake of the life of pleasure in this world or the next world, and that's what the Buddha rejected. And then finally, a great topic for a parrot's invention is the attack of Mara on the Buddha, as he sat underneath the bowley tree on the very night of his enlightenment. This, of course, is not at all part of the earliest story of the Buddha, but is, as it were, a story that was soon developed to intensify the account of the night of the Buddha's enlightenment and soon became a great topic of parrotry in the Mahayana scriptures. This episode gets massively extended, the Lalitavistra story, version of this episode, the Mahayana story of the Buddha. He's wonderfully over the top. Ashvigoshi is slightly more restrained in that sense. So, the Buddha's not bothered by Mara's daughters. He's rejected them. No sooner then had Mara thought of his army, wishing to hinder the colm of the Shaqya Sage, than his cohorts in diverse forms gathered around him, carrying in the hands, spears, trees, javalins, clubs and swords. Some with faces of boars, fishes, horses, donkeys and camels, some with the guise of tiggers, bears, lions and elephants, some with one eye, some with many mouths, some with three heads, some with enormous stomachs, some with spotted bellies, some without knees, some without thighs, some with knees, the size of pots, some armed with tusks, some armed with talons, some with skulls as faces, some with many bodies, some with half their faces torn off, some with colossal mouths, some having the color of ash, some with blood-red spots, some carrying aesthetic stays with skulls at the top, some with hair, smoke-colored like a monkey, some with hanging garlands, some with ears as big as an elephant, some wearing animal skins, some completely naked, some with half their faces white, some with half their bodies green, some copper-colored, some smoke-colored, some tawny, some black, some wearing snakes as their upper garments, some with clanging bells hanging from their girdles, some as tall as palmira trees, and carrying spears, some the size of children, with protruding fangs, some with faces of sheep, and the eyes of birds, some with faces of cats, and the bodies of men, some with disheveled hair, some wearing top knots, some with half shaven heads, some wearing red clothes, some with their turbans in disarray, some with excited faces, some with frowning faces, some draining energy, some drawing the mind, some let wildly as they dashed around, some jumped upon one another, some froliced rising up into the sky, some hopped across the treetops, one danced brandishing a trident, one roared dragging a club, one bellowed with joy like a bull, one blazed fire from every hair, throngs of fiends of these kinds, stood encircling the foot of that bow tree on every side, eager to seize and eager to kill, awating their master's orders, then one, his eyes rolling with rage, lifted up his club at the sage, but the hand holding the club froze, like Perandhara's hand of old, that was holding the bolt, some lifted rocks and trees at him, but could not hurl them at the sage, they fell down with the trees and rocks, like the outcrops of the Vindia Mountains, when they're struck by the thunderbolt, some leaping up into the sky, hurl them in rocks, axes and trees, but they hung in the sky and did not fall, like the multi-hued rays of twilight clouds, another flung a blazing stack of straw, as large as a mountain peak, but as it was thrown and still in the sky, it shattered into a hundred pieces by his miraculous power. One, blazing like the rising sun, released a great shower of burning coals from the sky, like Mount Meru, a blaze at Eon's end, showering lava fragments from golden rifts, but that shower of burning coals with flying sparks, sprinkling around the foot of the bowry, became a shower of red lotus petals, by the universal benevolence, practiced by that foremost of seers. That's just given you little tasters from various chapters of Ashvigoshi. It's like that all the way through. The Buddha just about gets enlightened before the Sanskrit runs out of Buddha charity, and then we're stuck with translations from Chinese and Tibetan, which is a bit of a problem. But happily, there is a translation of that still around. William Johnston, back in the 1930s, translated from Sanskrit and then from Chinese into English, and his book, Buddha Charity, All the Life of the Buddha, I think is in the lending library here. So it makes sense that a Buddhist poet would attempt the life of the Buddha as a first trial of his poetic strength as it were. But what would he do then? And in some ways, Ashvigoshi was up against the problem there because he attempted the richest story in the Buddhist kind of repertoire. So what he tried then was the story of the conversion of Nanda that Ratnigarba talked about earlier. Nanda was supposedly a cousin of the Buddha, which is to say he was also from the Shekhi clan, from Kapilavasti, where the Buddha was, was from. Also a well-off member of the ruling clan in Kapilavasti. And in the early Buddhist scriptures, in the Udana, there's a brief account of his story, that he was so in love with his wife, who was very beautiful, that he was personally happy with the married life, but the Buddha, caring for his destiny and his ultimate happiness, wanted to persuade him to become a monk. Because Nanda was so happy being married, the Buddha had to take extreme measures. He whipped him off to heaven, just as a strong man, might bend his arm or straighten his bent arm, so the Buddha can remove himself to the heavenly realms. And he showed Nanda, heavenly lengths of such exquisite beauty, that the good looks of his own wife were put into a sort of higher perspective, and the Buddha promised him those heavenly nymphs if he'd become a monk. So it's a sort of bargain, which Nanda did. And then later he, as of shame, he abandoned this aspiration for heavenly nymphs, and just practiced the dharma like another monk and became enlightened. So it's a very beautiful story, in some ways, comparable with Plato's symposium for the sublimation of love for beauty and to love for truth. But that's another subject. But what it allows Ashvagotia to do is to write about love in sensual language as much as he likes, because to write good poetry about this story, he has to really make it convincing. Firstly that Nanda should be quite happy with his wife. And then secondly the heavenly nymphs are even more beautiful. If he doesn't manage to do that in poetry, well it's not going to be a great story. And this introduces this tension into his poetry between sensuality and liberation. And in a way I think this illustrates the tension that's obviously at work in the poet himself. And I think we can call this the Miltonesque conundrum. If any of you have read Paradise Lost, you'll remember that in Paradise Lost, although God's in charge, the character of Satan gets all the best lines. He's by far the more interesting character, and in some ways he takes main stage. And you saw of Wanda whose side Milton was really on. As Blake said, Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it. We shouldn't say Milton was evil, but we should say that really he favored the individualistic, anti-authoritarian sort of side of things at some level of his being, where as God represents the big power who must be a bade. In Ashford Ghosh's case, the contrast is between the side of him is interested in sensuality and the side of him that's the monk, and supposedly interested in the spiritual life. But in some ways this tension is innate to poetry, and I'm going to prove that by quoting poetry from the Parley canon, from the earliest records of the Buddha. On one hand, you've got the sublime spiritual outpouring of the Buddha's son of victory from the Dhammapada. I have run through countless lives of wandering and not finding the house builder that I sought, rebirth his pain and yet more pain. But house builder, you are seen, you will not build this house again, the pain, every rafter now is broken, and the roof ridge taken down, mind, unfabricated, open, craving left behind. The Buddha is supposed to have uttered this wonderful verse immediately after his enlightenment. Of course we don't know whether the Buddha wrote it or some early Buddhist poet, I favor the latter, really. But it's got the character of a spontaneous utterance, the lyric poem, and that's as, in some ways, as good as early Buddhist poetry gets. And yet, then you suddenly find, in the Degan Akaya, in the long discourses of the Buddha, a an erotic love poem. Now why? It's very curious. I'm going to read it to you just to prove that Ashugashya was by no means doing anything unusual in writing about sensual love. While standing to one side of the Buddha, Panchasika, the musician, played his yellow bill of wood flute, loot, and recited these versions, these verses, about the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, about Arahants, and about love. These verses, by the way. The gold Indra has borrowed this musician from somewhere, to get the Buddha's attention. That's the sole reason this musician starts reciting his verses accompany by his lute. And he sings a love song for his girlfriend, to the Buddha, his meditating. Lovely lady sunshine, source of my joy. I honor Timbaru, your father, through whom you came to be. You're like water for the thirsty, gorgeous, like a cool breeze. Splendid thing, I love you, like Arahants love Dharma. Be medicine for my sickness, for my hunger, be food. Put my fire out, lady, be cool water where I burn. Let me plunge down onto your belly and breasts, like an overheated beast into a flowering lotus pool. Like a crazed elephant, heedless of sticks, spears or work, I've gone blank, maddened by your amazing thighs. My heart's tangled up with you, my mind's turned upside down, I'm hooked like a fish and I can't leave you behind. Delightful thighs, wrap me, soft-eyed lady, hold me, lovely one, embrace me, how I pray for this. There wasn't much love in me, but now because of your corals, my loves become infinite, like a donation made to Arahants. Whatever merit I've made in relation to such Arahants, may it ripen in my being with your complete loveliness. Whatever good I've done on this wide earth, may its fruition be my being with your perfect beauty. Just as Shakya Muni focused, wise and aware, through meditation sought the deathless, so I want you, sweet sunshine. And as the sage reduced, attaining the highest enlightenment, so I'd be delighted, my lovely, to be making love to you. It's Saka, Lord of Heaven, were to grant me a wish. Ah, lady, my love so strong, I choose you. So looting him, I honour your father, woman of wisdom, as I would a suddenly blooming sultry, for such a daughter's sake. That got the Buddha's attention. When it was over, the blessed one said to Pancha Sika, the musician, the sound of your strings harmonises so well with that of your singing, and the sound of your singing harmonises so well with that of your strings, that the sound of your strings doesn't dominate that of your singing, nor the sound of your singing, that of your strings. Where, Pancha Sika, did you compose these verses about the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sanga, about arrogance, and about love? I don't think anyone's explaining what that's doing in the thali canon, or why celibate monks preserved it for 500 years in an oral tradition. But I think it goes to show that Buddhism is, although it's an aesthetic religion in some times, Buddhism has always favoured poetry. So having proved the poems and praise of sensual love, by no means entirely unknown in Buddhism, we can understand that Ashvagotia was not entirely unusual in writing about sensual love as a Buddhist monk. So in his poem about, his long poem about Nanda, the sounder of Nanda concerning handsome Nanda, he had to first of all conjure up the delights of married love. So this is how he does it, of course in all the forms of Indian aesthetics, which are perhaps not our Western ways of thinking about beauty, but then again beauty to some degree has cultural manifestations. It's what's called sundery. She seemed a lotus pool in womanly form, with her laughter for swans, her eyes for bees, and her swelling breasts as budding lotus calyxes. Still more did she shine after the sunlight Nanda had arisen in her own family. With her captivating beauty and manner to match, in the world of humankind, she, sundery, was the loveliest of women, women, and he, Nanda, the happiest of men. Blind with passion, the couple took their pleasure in each other, as though they were the targets of candarpa and ratty, these must be gods of love. Although they were a home to joy and rapture, as though they were a vessel for arousal and satiety, with eyes only for each other's eyes, they hung upon each other's words and rubbed off their cosmetics through caressing each other, so mutually absorbed, were the couple. They were resplendent in their play, like a kinery and a kin pusher, these are mythic birds, standing in a mountain waterfall in tent on love, as though wishing to do each other in beauty and splendor. The couple gave each other pleasure by exciting passion in each other, while in languid moments they teasingly indebriated each other by way of mutual entertainment. At one time, he arranged her jewellery on her, not to make her lovelier, but to do her a service, for she was so adorned by her own beauty, that it was she who lent loveliness to her jewels. She put a mirror into his hand and said to her lover, just hold it in front of me, while I do my Vishayshaka, this must be a particular Indian form of makeup, and he held it, then looking at her husband's moustache, she made up her Vishayshaka just like it, but Nanda blew on the mirror to remedy this. She smiled to herself, at her husband's cheekiness, and playful little game, but throwed her brow, as though annoyed, and with her left hand, landing her with wine, she threw the lotus from behind her ear at his shoulder. Then she smeared some of her makeup on his face, and half closed eyes. And on the non, Ashvigosha tries to conjure up their playful innocence of married love. While they're playing like this, the Buddha turned up on his arms round to ask his cousin for ours, the tradition was that Buddhist monks just walk very mindfully between houses, they don't say anything or knock on the doors, they don't even make eye content, they just stand for a while. And of course, the Buddha turned up, they didn't say anything or knock on the doors, they didn't even make eye content, they just stand for a while. And of course, the Buddha was highly respected. And basically, Nanda was too involved in this love plate and notice, and the Buddha went again. And Nanda was mortified. When he heard that the great seer had come to his house, and he trembled, seeming with his bright decorations, garments and garlands, like a tree of paradise swaying in the wind. Putting his hands together in the shape of a lotus, he raised them to his forehead and asked his wife if he might leave. I would like to go and pay my respects to the guru, will you let me? She held him close and shivered like a wind-stirred creeper in circling a tree. Looking at him with her rolling eyes filled with tears, upside-deeply and replied, you wish to leave in order to see the guru, and I ought not to hinder you in your duty, go, my dear husband, but come back quickly before my Viciousica dries. If you are late, I will punish you severely. As you lie sleeping, I will keep waking you up by brushing against you with my breasts, but then refuse to talk to you. But if you hurry back to me, before my Viciousica is dry, I will hold you in my arms, bear of ornaments, and still damp with ungrunts. So off he goes, not really fearing the worst. But of course, following the Buddha, the Buddha just gave him his begging bowl, and headed out of town, and Nanda being his cousin, and a devoted follower, as a layperson, could hardly refuse the Buddha's begging bowl, and head home to his wife. So he was lured, as it were, out of town, and to where the Buddha was staying at some monastery outside of couple of us do. And then the story is slightly odd at this point, but somehow Nanda manages to be turned into a monk, he's kind of forced into the monkard, which is only just believable, but assuming it does happen, you could imagine that Nanda, this new monk, would be missing home. And a couple of chapters on, this is what Ashvagosha manages to evoke, Nanda knew no gladness, he bore the signs ordained by the teacher on his body, but not in his heart, and was discomforted by conjectures about his wife, which used to say, what's his wife up to? With the flowery riches of the month to flowers, with all the assaults of the flower-bannered god, which used to say, Karma, the equivalent of Cupid, and with the emotions habitual in the young, he lived in a monastery, but found no peace, wretched, he stood under a row of mango trees that were thick with settling bees. Long armed as a chariot yoke, he contemplated his lover and stretched vigorously as though drawing a bow, receiving from the mango trees a rain of tiny flowers like saffron powder, he thought of his wife and gave a heavy sigh, like a newly caught elephant in confinement. So from this point on, Ashvigosia, the poet, has quite a job. He has to convince the reader of his poetry of Nanda's conversion. Firstly, he gets an old monk to tell Nanda all about how rubbish women are, the disadvantages of women. But, you know, Nanda isn't impressed and he's not convinced. And that's something about Ashvigosia's poetry, that in the context of his time is quite powerful. He looks at things from several different points of view. And one of them is from the point of view of women. For instance, in his long poem on the life of the Buddha, there's a whole chapter in which the Buddha's wife, Yeshodra, laments. After all, her husband has just left to seek enlightenment, leaving behind her and the family and everyone that loves them. It's a sort of abandonment. And of course, from the Buddhist point of view, it's all very heroic and fine, but from the families point of view, it's a disaster. And Ashvigosia goes into all those emotions of abandonment and pain that Yeshodra and his mother and the Buddha's mother would have felt. As it were completing the imaginative emotional picture of the Buddhist story very well. Back in Nanda's story, this monk had him try to convert Nanda by talking about women and not succeeding then tries talking about impermanence. When you behold your face grown old, lustilous, lined with wrinkles, with a white moustache, broken teeth, and sagging eyebrows. Then, beaten by age, you will be free of vanity. A man who drinks hard for days and nights eventually sobers up. But a man besotted with his own strength, looks and youth, never comes to his senses until he reaches old age. Just as sugar cane, once all its juices completely squeezed out is thrown on the ground to dry it ready for the fire. So does the body. Once it has been crushed in the mill of old age and drained of its natural juices, waits to die. Just as a mighty tree, is chopped into segments by two men working as all, so are these living beings that have risen up toppled by old age in league with day and night. It steals memory, humiliates beauty, ruins sex, seizes speech, hearing and sight, produces fatigue and kills strength and vigor. Old age is the matchless enemy, a human kind. Ack knowledge, this great death indicating danger in the world known as old age, and do not rise to the ignoble and complacent thought, I am lovely, strong, and young. The problem is when you're young, even those kind of reminders don't really work. And so the Buddha is called in, and he takes Nanda off up to heaven to meet the Absoraces, the celestial nymphs who are superlatively beautiful, and whose whole purpose in life is to please in whatever way is appropriate, those who've practiced aesthetic penances in this world. And in some ways, I'm not sure I should be sure quite manages to evoke these asporaces, as well as could be. Perhaps the reader's imagination is required at this stage. But he's set up the picture so well that it's not very difficult. I think I'm going to skip over there, because time is moving on. The ploy works. The Buddha manages to persuade Nanda to remain a monk, not to go back to his wife. And in the end, Nanda, through a siduous practice, through practicing the Dharma, according to the Buddha's personal instruction, reaches enlightenment. And at this stage, Nanda, as a newly enlightened being, can express the journey he's made, as it were, and his gratitude to the Buddha. And this is how he does it. Through the guidance of his brother and teacher, and through his own valour, Nanda had accomplished what was to be done, and with tranquil mind, he inwardly gave praise. Hommage be to him, the Sugata, who in his compassionate striving for my well-being, turned away many sorrows and brought great joy. For I was being pulled down the path of suffering by ignoble physicality, but I was turned back, hooked by his words, as a proud elephant, is turned back with a hook. The arrow of lust that was lodged in my heart was pulled out under the direction of the compassionate teacher. Emanc's bliss is mine right now, just as I would put out of fire with water, I have extinguished the burning fire of passion with the water of steadfastness. Now I have come to utter rapture, like someone slipping into a cool lake during the summer heat. There is nothing at all that is pleasant or unpleasant for me. I am not enamoured of anything, and even less am I hostile to anything. In the absence of these two, I am straightaway joyful, like one who is spared extremes of cold and heat. Like finding safety from great danger, like release from imprisonment, like reaching the further shore of the great ocean without a boat, like light after terrible darkness, like recovery from an unindurable sickness, like solvency after incalculable debt, like escape from an enemy presence, like plentiful alms after a dearth of alms. Like wise, I have come to utmost peace through the power of the teacher. Again and repeatedly, I do homage, homage to him, the worthy one, the realized one. So Nanda makes it to enlightenment, having started from a position of being quite happily involved in married love. I don't think that the poetic tensions in this poem are particularly resolved. Maybe Ashvagotia just about manages to get us to believe that it's better to be enlightened than to be happily married. That's the task he set himself. But one thing I do notice is that he didn't make the attempt by trying to put down married love and the life of sensuality. But rather he tried to expand upon that theme to build upon it, to show the superiority as it were of the Dharma and of practicing the Dharma to the life of sensuality. And of course, that's what's necessary to be a Buddhist monk and a poet. Had he tried to remove himself from all involvement and sensuality, he could not have written poetry. He himself was living this very tension between sensuality and liberation. And perhaps his life as a poet is a reflection of some personal struggle innates to his own character between the love of what is beautiful in language and reality and the love of truth itself. In that sense, he put himself in a situation where he was forced to write poetry as best he can, a best he could. And in that sense, he became india's great, Buddhist poet. And he was a great ambassador to poetry itself. For poetry itself is a kind of truth-telling which yet allows us to keep our humanity in all its sensual richness and weakness at the same time as we attempt to develop that humanity and perhaps to some extent to transcend it. Thanks very much. That's the end of my introduction to us [applause] We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at free Buddhist audio.com/donate. And thank you. [music] [applause] [BLANK_AUDIO]