Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 49.djvu/16

xii we forget that in the R&m4ya«a the description is merely introduced as an ornamental episode ; in the Buddhist poem it is an essential element in the story, as it supplies the final impulse which stirs the Bodhisattva to make his escape from the world. These different descriptions became after- wards commonplaces in Sanskrit poetry, like the catalogue of the ships in Greek or Roman epics ; but they may very well have originated in connection with definite incidents in the Buddhist sacred legend.

The Sanskrit MSS. of Nepal are always negligently transcribed and abound with corrupt passages, which it is often very difficult to detect and restore. My printed text leaves many obscure lines which will have to be cleared up hereafter by more skilful emendations. I have given in the notes to the translation some further emendations of my own, and I have also added several happy conjectures which continental scholars have kindly suggested to me by letter ; and I gladly take this opportunity of adding in a foot-note some which I received too late to insert in their proper places.

I have endeavoured to make my translation intelligible to the English reader, but many of the verses in the original are very obscure. Asvaghosha employs all the resources of Hindu rhetoric (as we might well expect if I-tsing is right in ascribing to him an ‘alamkâra-sâstra’), and it is often difficult to follow his subtil turns of thought and remote allusions ; but many passages no doubt owe their present obscurity to undetected mistakes in the text of our MSS. In the absence of any commentary (except so far as the diffuse Chinese translation and occasional reference to the Tibetan have supplied the want) I have been necessarily left to my own resources, and I cannot fail to have sometimes missed my author's meaning,

Tr&msulabhye phale mohâd udbâhur iva vâmanah ;