Note 2 — III AÇVAGHOṢA AND THE BUDDHIST DRAMA

In one point only has it been claimed to find a clear discrepancy between Açvaghoṣa’s practice and that of the later drama. At the close the theory2 requires that the question, ‘Is there anything further that you desire (ataḥ param api priyam asti)?’ be addressed to the hero by himself or another, to which he replies by uttering a benediction styled the Bharatavākya. In the drama of Açvaghoṣa the phrase is omitted, and the benediction proceeds, without prelude, with the words, ‘From now on shall these two ever increase their knowledge, restraining their senses, to gain release’, spoken by the Buddha, not by the hero. Lüders concludes hence that the regular form of close was not yet established by Açvaghoṣa’s time. The conclusion is clearly fallacious, and rests on a failure to recognize in this the readiness of Açvaghoṣa to give effect to a traditional usage, while not slavishly following it. It would obviously have been absurd to place the last words in the drama in the form of a benediction in the mouth of any one save the Buddha, and therefore he speaks the benediction. To preface it with the usual formula was needless in his case, but the opening words of the verse are ataḥ param, which is obviously not an incredible coincidence, but a deliberate reference to the ordinary phrase. Açvaghoṣa shows thus his knowledge of the rule and his power to vary it in case of need. Similarly Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa in the Veṇīsaṁhāra puts the Bharatavākya in the mouth of Yudhiṣṭhira, but he makes Kṛṣṇa end the play by according the favour prayed for by Yudhiṣṭhira. He too felt that it would be absurd to leave the omnipotent one in the position of listening without response to the utterance of a benediction by one who cannot be more than an inferior, though nominally the hero.3