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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> - 208<br />

‘He who knows it th<strong>or</strong>oughly reaches at last to absolute<br />

tenuity; and having become thus attenuated he becomes blissfully<br />

extinct.<br />

44. ‘When you have thus learned this, in <strong>or</strong>der to be freed from the<br />

bond <strong>of</strong> existence, you must cut down with all your eff<strong>or</strong>ts the root <strong>of</strong><br />

pain, ign<strong>or</strong>ance.<br />

45. ‘Then, being set free from the bonds <strong>of</strong> the prison-house <strong>of</strong><br />

existence, as Arhats, possessing natures perfectly pure, you shall attain<br />

Nirvāṇa.’<br />

46. Having heard this lesson preached <strong>by</strong> the chief <strong>of</strong> saints, all the<br />

mendicants comprehended the course and the cessation <strong>of</strong> embodied<br />

existence.<br />

47. As these five ascetics listened to his w<strong>or</strong>ds, their intellectual eye<br />

was purified f<strong>or</strong> the attainment <strong>of</strong> perfect wisdom:<br />

48. The eye <strong>of</strong> dharma was purified in six hundred millions <strong>of</strong> gods,<br />

and the eye <strong>of</strong> wisdom in eight hundred millions <strong>of</strong> Brahmans.<br />

49. The eye <strong>of</strong> dharma was purified in eighty thousand men, and even<br />

in all beings an ardour f<strong>or</strong> the Law was made visible.<br />

50. Everywhere all kinds <strong>of</strong> evil became tranquillised, and on every<br />

side an ardour f<strong>or</strong> all that helps on the good Law manifested itself.

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