The Awakening of Faith: Introduction: As an Artist
AS AN ARTIST.
We cannot conclude the accounts concerning Açvaghosha without mentioning an anecdote from a Chinese source. 2 The Çraddhotpâdaçâstra (The Awakening
He [Açvaghosha] then went to Pâtaliputra for his propaganda-tour, where he composed an excellent tune called Lai cha huo lo (
Râstavara?), that he might by this means convert the people of the city. Its melody was classical, mournful, and melodious, inducing the audience to ponder on the misery, emptiness, and non-âtman-ness of life. That is to say, the music roused in the mind of the hearer the thought that all aggregates are visionary and subject to transformation; that the triple world is a jail and a bondage, with nothing enjoyable in it; that since royalty, nobility, and the exercise of supreme power, are all characterised with transitoriness, nothing can prevent their decline, which will be as sure as the dispersion of the clouds in the sky; that this corporeal existence is a sham, is as hollow as a plantain tree, is an enemy, a foe, one not to be intimately related with; and again that like a box in which a cobra is kept, it should
34:2 The Transmission of the Dharmapitaka (Fu fa tsang chuan, fas. 5). 35:1 The fact agrees well with Târanâtha's statement which in its German translation reads as follows: "Die von ihm verfassten Loblieder sind auch in allen Ländern verbreitet; da zuletzt Sänger und Possenreisser dieselben vortrugen und bei allen Menschen des Landes mit Macht Glauben an den Buddha entstand, erwuchs durch die Loblieder grösserer Nutzen zur Verbreitung der Lehre. Geschichte des Buddhismus, German translation, p. 91.
