This book is the English translation of Sugata Saurabha, a poetic rendering of the Buddha's life, published in 1947 in the Nepalese language, Newari, by Chittadhar Hrdaya, one of the greatest literary figures from Nepal in the twentieth century. Sugata Saurabha (“The Fragrant Life of the Buddha”) is a remarkable text for its comprehensiveness, artistry, and nuance. Remarkably, this work was composed while Chittadhar was jailed for five years for the crime of publishing a poem in his native language. Sugata Saurabha covers the Buddha's life from birth to enlightenment to death, according to the classical sources, and conveys his basic teachings with simple clarity and narrative subtlety. What makes this nineteen-chapter epic of additional interest is the author's insertions, where the classical sources are silent, of details on the Buddha's life and sociocultural context that are Nepalese. The effect is to humanize the founder and add the texture of real-life detail. A third level of artistry is the modernist perspective that underlies the poet's manner of retelling this great spiritual narrative. This rendering from the Kathmandu Valley, in a long line of accounts of the Buddha's life dating back almost two thousand years, may be the last ever written in the tradition of Indic classic poetry (kāvya). Sugata Saurabha provides an aesthetically pleasing and doctrinally sound comprehensive account of the Buddha's life and is of interest to Buddhist devotees and suitable for classroom use.
目次
I Sugata Saurabha, by Chittadhar Hṛdaya 1 Lumbinī 2 Family Tree 3 Nativity 4 Mother 5 A Pleasant Childhood 6 Education 7 Marriage 8 The Great Renunciation 9 Yashodharā 10 Attaining Enlightenment 11 The Basic Teachings 12 The Blessed One in Kapilavastu 13 Handsome Nanda 14 The Great Lay Disciple 15 Twelve Years of Itinerant Preaching 16 A Dispute over Water 17 The Monastery Built by Vishākhā 18 Devadatta's Sacrilege 19 Entry into Nirvāṇa II Perspectives for Understanding Sugata Saurabha 1 The Life of the Buddha: Previous Accounts in the Buddhist Textual Tradition 2 The Kāvya Sanskrit Poetry Tradition and the Indic Aesthetic Tradition 3 The Nepalese Context and Newar Cultural Traditions 4 Chittadhar Hṛdaya: A Literary Biography of His Formative Years 5 Domestication of Newar Traditions in Sugata Saurabha as Those of the Ancient Shākyas 6 The Modern Confluence of Buddhism in the Kathmandu Valley: Reformist Theravāda and Traditional Mahāyāna 7 Buddhist Doctrinal Emphases and Exposition 8 The Spell of Idealizations and the Revitalization of Newar Civilization
