Searching for the white elephant: Did Aśvaghoṣa ever write a Sūtrālaṃkāra?

Abstract

Indian Buddhist tradition holds that Aśvaghoṣa composed a work called Sūtrālaṃkāra. More than a hundred years ago, the Chinese translation of a text purportedly written by Aśvaghoṣa with a title that could easily be understood as a representation of the Sūtrālaṃkāra sparked a heated debate among scholars as to whether this work was really a composition by the famous poet. The debate was settled when early Sanskrit fragments of the text became known, which clearly named a certain Kumāralāta as the author. This ended the debate, but did not answer the question of whether such a Sūtrālaṃkāra ever existed. In 2018, a previously neglected text became accessible, the Tridaṇḍakamālā, which contains a wealth of verses related to Aśvaghoṣa. Suddenly the question was open again, and not only could several quotations be identified that appear to come from the Sūtrālaṃkāra, but an astonishing degree of intertextuality with other relevant sources was also revealed. This may suggest that the Tridaṇḍakamālā consists to a large extent of verses quoted from the lost Sūtrālaṃkāra, but at present such a conclusion is made difficult, if not impossible, by methodological problems that seem insurmountable. The paper will present the state of research and discuss these problems.