Kṣemendra (c. 990 – c. 1070 CE), an 11th-century Sanskrit polymath — poet, satirist, philosopher, historian, dramatist, translator, art critic — from Kashmir. Born into a wealthy and cultured Kashmiri family, he studied under the great Śaiva philosopher and literary theorist Abhinavagupta. Originally a Śaiva, he later turned to Vaiṣṇavism but also composed important Buddhist works. His active literary career runs from 1037 (the dated Bṛhatkathāmañjarī) to at least 1066 (the Daśāvatāracarita) under the patronage of the Kashmiri kings Ananta (r. 1028–1063) and Kalaśa (r. 1063–1089).
Kṣemendra’s principal Buddhist work is the Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā (also styled Avadānakalpalatā), a verse anthology of 108 avadāna tales completed in 1052 and supplemented after his death by his son Somendra; it became the foundation of the standard later collection of Buddhist avadāna literature in Sanskrit and is the source of many Tibetan and East-Asian Buddhist visual narrative cycles. R. S. Pandit famously called Kṣemendra “the Voltaire of Kashmir” for the bite of his social satires.
For Kanripo: the Bǎojì běnyuán 寶髻本緣 KR6v0102 is a modern Chinese translation by 任遠 of the Maṇicūḍāvadāna extracted from Kṣemendra’s Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā.