Three stages in the history of Indian Buddhism are marked by the names of Asvaghosha, Nagarjuna and the two brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu.  It would be easier to give a precise description of its development if we were sure which of the works ascribed to these worthies are authentic, but it seems that Asvaghosha represents an ornate and transitional phase of the older schools leading to Mahayanism, whereas Nagarjuna is connected with the Prajna-paramita and the nihilistic philosophy described in the preceding chapter.  Asanga was the founder of the later and more scholastic system called Yogacara and is also associated with a series of revelations said to have been made by Maitreya.

As mentioned above, tradition makes Asvaghosha,[203] one of the most brilliant among Sanskrit writers, live at the court of Kanishka[204] and according to some accounts he was given to the Kushans as part of a war indemnity.  The tradition[205] is confirmed by the style and contents of his poems and it has been noted by Foucher that his treatment of legends is in remarkable accord with their artistic presentment in the Gandharan sculptures.  Also fragmentary manuscripts of his dramas discovered in Central Asia appear to date from the Kushan epoch.  Asvaghosha’s rank as a poet depends chiefly on his Buddhacarita, or life of the Buddha up to the time of his enlightenment.  It is the earliest example of a Kavya, usually translated as artificial epic, but here literary skill is subservient to the theme and does not, as too often in later works, overwhelm it.  The Buddha is its hero, as Rama of the Ramayana, and it sings the events of his earlier life in a fine flow of elaborate but impassioned language.  Another of his poems,[206] discovered only a few years ago, treats of the conversion of Nanda, the Buddha’s half-brother.

Various other works are ascribed to Asvaghosha and for the history of Buddhism it is of great interest to decide whether he was really the author of The Awakening of Faith.  This skilful exposition of a difficult theme is worthy of the writer of the Buddhacarita but other reasons make his authorship doubtful, for the theology of the work may be described as the full-blown flower of Mahayanism untainted by Tantrism.  It includes the doctrines of Bhuta-tathata, Alaya-vijnana, Tathagatagarbha and the three bodies of Buddha.  It would be dangerous to say that these ideas did not exist in the time of Kanishka, but what is known of the development of doctrine leads us to expect their full expression not then but a century or two later and other circumstances raise suspicions as to Asvaghosha’s authorship.  His undoubted works were translated into Chinese about 400 A.D. but The Awakening of Faith a century and a half later.[207] Yet if this concise and authoritative compendium had existed in 400, it is strange that the earlier translators neglected it.  It is also stated that an old Chinese catalogue of the Tripitaka does not name Asvaghosha as the author.[208]