The Buddhist contribution to the Indian belles lettres
The Buddhist contribution to the Indian belles lettres

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims at summarising the progress that has been made after World War II in collecting, editing, translating, and analysing the Buddhist contributions to classical Sanskrit literature. It demonstrates that the systematic search for manuscripts has brought to light many unknown works, among them veritable highlights of their respective genres, such as the play Lokānanda by Candragomin, the Jātakamālās by Saṅghasena, Haribhaṭṭa, and Gopadatta, a great number of outstanding hymns by Mātṛceṭa and his successors, and verse epics such as the Kapphiṇābhyudaya by Śivasvāmin, and the two late poems by Sarvarakṣita, namely the Mahāsaṃvartanīkathā and the Maṇicūḍajātaka. It is noteworthy that in many cases the oldest or even only specimens of various genres were composed by Buddhist authors.

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