Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Aśvaghoṣa and his School – 51
Vajrasūci : Polemic against Caste
The Vajrasūci or refutation of the Arguments upon which the
Brahmanical institution of the caste is founded by the learned
Buddhist Aśvaghoṣa (edited by Lancelot Wilkinson) also the Tunku
by Soobajee Bapoo, being a reply to the Wujra Soochi, l839. A
Weber, Uber die Vajrasūci (Abdhandlungen der Preuss Akademie
der Wissenschaften phil. hist. Kl. 1859, S. 295 ff. and Indische
Streifesn 1, 116 ff.) B. H. Hodgson Essays on the Languages,
Literature and Religion of Nepal and Tibet, London 1874, p 126 ff.
and S. Levi A. 1908, s· 10 t, XII p. 70 f.
Here the author very effectively takes up the Brahmanic standpoint
and demonstrates on the authority of Brahmanic texts and citations
from the Veda, the Mahābhārata and Manu the invalidity of the
claims of caste as recognised by Brahmans. When in 1829 Hodgson
published a translation of the books and Wilkinson in 1839 published
an edition they astonished scholars by the democratic spirit of
Europe displayed in the book. In this tract the doctrine of equality
[39] of mankind has been advocated; for all human beings are “in
respect of joy and sorrow, love, insight, manners and ways, death,
fear and life, all equal.” Did we but know more about the author and
the time when the book was composed it would be of much greater
importance for the literary history of India on account of the
quotations from Brahmanic texts. It speaks for the authorship of
Aśvaghoṣa that in Sūtrālaṁkāra No. 77 the Brahmanic institutions
are arraigned with the help of quotations from Manu’s law book just
as in the Vajrasūci. On the other hand the Vajrasūci is enumerated
neither in the Tibetan Tanjur nor among the works of Aśvaghoṣa by
I-tsing; and further in the Chinese Tripiṭaka Catalogue the Vajrasūci,