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Buddha-carita, or Life of Buddha by Ven. Aśvaghoṣa

An English translation of this famous life of the Buddha, one of the great pieces of Sanskrit literature, with additions to help complete the text.

An English translation of this famous life of the Buddha, one of the great pieces of Sanskrit literature, with additions to help complete the text.

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<strong>Buddha</strong>-<strong>carita</strong>, <strong>or</strong> <strong>Life</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Buddha</strong> - 153<br />

78. ‘The body-knower (the soul) which is unembodied, must be either<br />

knowing <strong>or</strong> unknowing; if it is knowing, there must be some object to<br />

be known, and if there is this object, it is not liberated.<br />

79. ‘Or if the soul is declared to be unknowing, then <strong>of</strong> what use to<br />

you is this imagined soul? Even without such a soul, the existence <strong>of</strong><br />

the absence <strong>of</strong> knowledge is not<strong>or</strong>ious as, f<strong>or</strong> instance, in a log <strong>of</strong><br />

wood <strong>or</strong> a wall.<br />

80. ‘And since each successive abandonment is held to be still<br />

accompanied <strong>by</strong> qualities, I maintain that the absolute attainment <strong>of</strong><br />

our end can only be found in the abandonment <strong>of</strong> everything.’<br />

81. Thus did he remain unsatisfied after he had heard the doctrine <strong>of</strong><br />

Arāḍa; then having decided it to be incomplete, he turned away.<br />

82. Seeking to know the true distinction, he went to the hermitage <strong>of</strong><br />

Udraka, but he gained no clear understanding from his treatment <strong>of</strong><br />

the soul.<br />

83. F<strong>or</strong> the sage Udraka, having learned the inherent imperfections <strong>of</strong><br />

the name and the thing named, took refuge in a the<strong>or</strong>y beyond<br />

Nihilism, which maintained a name and a non-name.<br />

84. And since even a name and a non-name were substrata, however<br />

subtil, he went even further still and found his restlessness set at rest<br />

in the idea that there is no named and no un-named;

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