Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Sūtrālaṅkāra – 164
and which in the Chinese is called Fo-pen-hing. The occasion was the
lamentation of Sudatta when the Buddha is about to leave [193]
Śrāvastī. The Chinese version of the Buddhacarita is the only one
which could be used with reference to this part of the Buddha’s
career. But it has nothing in connection with this episode. It is to be
noted here, that the translator of the Chinese rendering, Kumārajīva,
in referring to the Life of the Buddha here does not use the title Fopen-hing
which he had employed in the two other references we
mentioned above. Evidently he has probably in mind another
Sanskrit work dealing with the life of the Buddha which also was
translated into Chinese.
With Aśvaghoṣa begins the list of the literary writers of India. The
only names of authors which to our knowledge preceded him are
connected with technical works. And none of them permits of being
assigned even an approximately correct date. Hence we can measure
the importance of his work, the Sūtralaṅkāra, as the first
chronological landmark along with the sister compilation of the
Buddhacarita in the nebulous chaos of the literary history of India.
The least reliable data which we can extract from them are of
inestimable value. Some of the events and facts which we can thus
establish with certainty are the following:
The geographical horizon of the Sūtralaṅkāra embraces the whole of
India since it stretches as far as Ceylon, but it is the north-western
India which alone is placed in full light. In the Gangetic province the
author mentions Pāṭaliputra and Mathurā. But in the basin of the
Indus be mentions Śakala, Takṣaśilā, Avanti, Aṣmaka, Gandhāra and
Puṣkalavati. Two other names are hard to restore to their original
shapes from the Chinese translation. The country of Ki-pin, which