Mǎmíng púsà zhuàn 馬鳴菩薩傳
Biography of the Bodhisattva Aśvaghoṣa
translated by 鳩摩羅什 (Kumārajīva, 344–413, 譯) under the Later Qín 後秦
About the work
A short single-juan biography of the Indian Buddhist poet-saint Aśvaghoṣa (馬鳴 Mǎmíng; c. 1st–2nd c. CE), translated into Chinese by 鳩摩羅什 (Kumārajīva) during his years in Cháng’ān. Together with the parallel translations of the lives of Nāgārjuna (KR6r0036 / KR6r0037) and Āryadeva (KR6r0038), the Mǎmíng púsà zhuàn belongs to a small set of biographical translations that Kumārajīva produced as companions to his major doctrinal translations of these masters’ works (the Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the Catuḥśataka, etc.).
Abstract
鳩摩羅什 arrived in Cháng’ān in 401 (Hóngshǐ 弘始 3) and worked there under the Later Qín until his death in 413. The composition of the Mǎmíng púsà zhuàn falls within this twelve-year window. The text gives a hagiographic account of Aśvaghoṣa: his birth in central India, his initial career as a brahminical disputant, his defeat in debate by the Sarvāstivāda master Pārśva (脇尊者), his conversion to Buddhism, his composition of doctrinal hymns and dramas, his service at the court of King Kaniṣka of the Kuṣāṇa empire, and his death.
The Chinese narrative aligns Aśvaghoṣa loosely with the Sarvāstivāda tradition and places him within the Kushan period, broadly compatible with what modern Indian-Buddhist scholarship reconstructs (early second century CE). The work is one of the principal Chinese sources for the East Asian image of Aśvaghoṣa as poet, dramatist, doctrinal author, and Buddhist patriarch — an image that significantly affected later Chinese understandings of the early Mahāyāna.
Translations and research
- Étienne Lamotte, Histoire du bouddhisme indien (Louvain, 1958) — uses the Kumārajīva biography in reconstructing the Aśvaghoṣa tradition.
- Discussions in studies of Aśvaghoṣa: e.g. Patrick Olivelle (trans.), Life of the Buddha by Aśvaghoṣa (Clay Sanskrit Library, 2008) — biographical introduction.
- No standalone Western-language translation of the KR6r0035 located.