Specialty of Buddhist Sanskrit Literature Atul Bhosekar

Specialty of Buddhist Sanskrit Literature

Before the publication of Franklin Edgertons Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary (1953), the language of scriptures of the Northern Buddhists such as the Mahavastu, the Lalitvistara, the Divyavadana, etc was known as Buddhist Sanskrit. The early Buddhist scriptural works that seem to have been produced in the northern half of the sub-continent of India are either in Middle Indo Aryan i.e Prakrit or in a style of Sanskrit minus the standards set by Panini. These northern Buddhist texts do not represent any identical language. They are a mix of Prakrit and Sanskrit and are formed from non homogenous words. A proper study reveals that the Buddhist Sanskrit is not a hybrid language and though the overall pattern is like Sanskrit, it is free from the rigid pattern set by Sanskrit grammarians. Buddhist Sanskrit has always been a general language spoken by common people who were not aspiring for any brahmanical scholarship or veneration. It was an unstable literary language

Specialty of Buddhist Sanskrit Literature Atul Bhosekar

that varied as per time and place. Hence it is incorrect to call such a language as hybrid. Buddhist Sanskrit was not an artificially made up language fashioned by fusing Sanskrit and Prakrit. Any language whether spoken or literary borrows its vocabulary. In case of Buddhist Sanskrit, it borrows heavily from both Sanskrit and Prakrit. Buddhist Sanskrit was used as an administrative language in Madhyadesha by Kanishka and his successors. While understanding Buddhist history, we come to know that an enormous amount of Buddhist literature was created in Sanskrit, beginning right after the Buddhas Mahaparinirvana, continuing up to the 12th century AD in India. Out of this vast literature, comprising several thousand texts, only a portion was translated into Tibetan between the 7th and 15th centuries and into Chinese between the 2nd and 11th centuries. Unfortunately, with the passage of time, the great treasure of Buddhist literature in Sanskrit was lost or destroyed due to various developments over the course of history. An exhaustive history of the Sanskrit Buddhist literature has long been needed. The reasons behind the scarcity of research into Sanskrit Buddhist literature are many.

Specialty of Buddhist Sanskrit Literature Atul Bhosekar

One of the major reasons is the disappearance of Buddhism from most of India and the unavailability of the original Sanskrit Buddhist works. In 1824, Mr. Brian Hodgson, a British diplomat, discovered a great number of Sanskrit Buddhist manuscripts in Nepal and reported their existence to the modern world. The existence of these texts was unknown to the rest of the world before his time, and his discovery completely revolutionized the understanding of

Buddhism among Europeans in the early part of the nineteenth century. With regard to the situation at this time, Prof. Jaya Deva Singh observes in his Introduction to Madhyamika Philosophy: Books on Mahayana Buddhism were completely lost in India. Their translations existed in Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan. Mahayana literature was written mostly in Sanskrit and mixed Sanskrit. Scholars who have made a study of Buddhism hardly suspected that there were also books on Buddhism in Sanskrit. Similarly, Suniti Kumar Chatterji writes: One great service the people of Nepal did, particularly the highly civilized Newars of the Nepal Valley, was to preserve the manuscripts of Mahayana

Specialty of Buddhist Sanskrit Literature Atul Bhosekar

Buddhist literature in Sanskrit. It was the contribution of Sri Lanka to have preserved for humankind the entire mass of the Pali literature of Theravada Buddhism. This went also to Burma, Cambodia, and Siam. It was similarly the great achievement of the people of Nepal to have preserved the equally valuable original Sanskrit texts of Mahayana Buddhism. This Himalayan Kingdom not only played an important role in the expansion of Buddhism but also in the preservation of various ancient Buddhist traditions and texts. Mahayana / Vajrayana texts preserved in Nepalmany of which are available nowhere else in the worldare of immense significance to the study and development of Buddhism. Buddhism already existed in the Himalayan region before the Ashokan period. During the course of time, Vajrayna Buddhism became a dominant form of Buddhism in Nepal. Eminent Indian monks from great Indian Universities such as Nalanda, Odantapuri and Vikramsila fled to Nepal, carrying along a large number of Sanskrit texts, which were soon massively copied by Nepalese Buddhists. The tradition of copying texts was regarded as an act of merit among Nepalese Buddhists, and this was the main reason

Specialty of Buddhist Sanskrit Literature Atul Bhosekar

that Nepal came to have such a huge collection of Buddhist manuscripts. Ordinary (lay) Buddhists purchased those texts and used them for religious purposes. Most are written in Sanskrit, using Newari, Ranjana, Bhujimol and Devanagari scripts. The manuscripts, written on palm leaves and collected in birch bark folios, are preserved intact and are in surprisingly good condition. Style: The meter of Buddhist Sanskrit verses throws a flood of light on the phonology of the language, and must therefore be carefully analyzed. Unfortunately it has always been

misunderstood.

When dealing with the Buddhist literature,

particularly the sutras of Mahayana texts and the Prajnaparamita texts, one can see lot of repetitions of phrases and hyperbolism. Simson tried to do justice to these repetitions. He attributes this to the mnemo-technical importance and hints at psychological impact. (George von Simson; Zur Diktion einiger Lehrtexte des
Buddhistischen Sanskritkanons; 1965)

If the texts are repeated

very often, the old samskaras are replaced with the new and this creates high concentration of the mind on selective image. Even Oldenberg (Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa, Berlin 1917) feels that there is a psychological element that seems to fir quite

Specialty of Buddhist Sanskrit Literature Atul Bhosekar

well in the environment and spiritual climate of monks. He remembers that the texts have been composed by monks who were used to measuring every movement according to strict rules and hence there has to be a reason behind these repetitions probably an effect to bring about higher developed stylistic alertness. In the Mahayana, the so-called "nine dharmas" are no canon of any sect, but a series of books which have been composed at different periods and belong to different

persuasions, though all of them enjoy a high veneration in Nepal to-day. These nine works are: Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, Saddharmapundarika, Lalitavistara, Lankavatara,

Suvarnaprabhasa, Gandavyuha, Tathagathaguhyaka Samadhiraja, Dashabhumishvara. All these scriptures are also designated Vaipulyasutras. All these similes would be more beautiful if they were not carried out to extensively and extravagantly far so that the point of comparison suffers. But this hyperbole in the figurative language is quite characteristic of the book. It is an actual intoxication of words with which the reader is deadened, the thought being drowned in the inundation of verbiage. Still more immense and

Specialty of Buddhist Sanskrit Literature Atul Bhosekar

magnified than words are the figures. There lives, for instance, " a Buddha forty hundred thousand myriads of ten million eons, as many as there are grains of sand in the River Ganges" ', and after he had attained to complete Nirvana, his true religion endured for a hundred thousand myriads of ten million ages equal to the number of ears of corns in all India , and a degenerated form of the true faith continued further for a thousand myriads of ten million 'ages equal to the number of the ears of corn in the four continents. And there arose one after another in the world "twenty hundred thousand myriads often million" such Buddhas
(Sacred Books of the East, Chap. XI, 21 text, pp. 376 f.355.) In the

most extravagant fashion, beyond all limits of computation the Buddha is glorified, especially in the grandiose phantasmagoria of Chapter XIV in which, through the magical powers of the Buddha, the earth splits and suddenly appear from all sides many hundred thousand myriads of ten thousand Bodhisattvas each with a following as numerous as the aggregate grains of sixty Ganges streams. And while these innumerable Bodhisattvas pay homage to the Buddha fifty ages pass away during which a great silence rules but which through the supernatural power of the Lord

Specialty of Buddhist Sanskrit Literature Atul Bhosekar

appear only as an afternoon. The Sanskrit literature in Buddhism, however, is by no means exclusively Mahayanist. Before all, the Hinayana possessed a canon of its own and a rich literature in Sanskrit. Conclusion: The Buddhist Sanskrit literature is a huge reservoir of Buddhist philosophy. Though erroneously termed as hybrid, Buddhist Sanskrit represents the spoken language of people in that period and place. It is no doubt that scholars have failed to do more research in Sanskrit Buddhist texts. The reasons among many are the mixed language of Prakrit and Sanskrit as well as the myopic view of the scholars in downsizing the Buddhist philosophy. The Newars of Nepal have done a tremendous job of preserving these ancient texts without which, our knowledge of Buddhism would have been very primitive. The study of these texts shed light on the various aspects of social, religious, political and economic scenario of the country in that period.

Atul Bhosekar M.A (Buddhist Studies), Part-1

Specialty of Buddhist Sanskrit Literature Atul Bhosekar

References: 1. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary; Franklin Edgerton (1953)
2.

Introduction to Madhyamika Philosophy; Prof. Jaydev Singh Zur Diktion einiger Lehrtexte des Buddhistischen

3.

Sanskritkanons; George von Simson, 1965 4. Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa, Oldenberg, Berlin 1917 5. Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 23; Chap, XI, pp. 376 6. Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism; G.K.Nariman, 1920 7. Indian Buddhism; A.K.Warder, 1970