"Therefore" (these are almost the last words of his Discourse on the Awakening of Faith), "it is said in the Sutra that if devoted men and women would be filled with concentration of thought, think of Amitabha Buddha in the world of highest happiness in the Western region, and direct all the root of their good work toward being born there, they will assuredly be born there. Thus always seeing Buddhas there, their faith will be strengthened, and they will never relapse therefrom. Receiving instruction in the doctrine, and recognizing the Dharmakaya of the Buddha, they will by gradual discipline be able to enter upon the state of truth."

It is surely significant that at this particular period in the world's history the very first book which describes itself definitely as belonging to the Mahayana should end with a recommendation to faith in one who bears such a strange resemblance to Christ.

The name of Pars'va who converted As'vaghosha to the Mahayana gives a clue to As'vaghosha's date. For Pars'va was the chairman, or at any rate an active member, of Kanishka's Great Council which took place at Jhalamdara early in the second century. We may therefore, with a certain amount of confidence, place As'vaghosha about the year A.D. 80 or 90, some twenty or thirty years after St. Thomas, and about the same period before Kanishka's Council.

Footnotes

^96:1 It is noteworthy that there are great discrepancies in these lists. Suzuki ("Awakening of the Faith," p. 33) quotes five lists. In most of them As'vaghosha comes about eleventh or twelfth, with Nagarjuna thirteenth or fourteenth. But in the list given by the Sarvastivadins As'vaghosha is 12 and Nagarjuna 34.

^97:1 See translation of the Shoshinge in "Shinran and His Work."

^97:2 "As'vaghosha's Awakening of Faith." Chicago, Open Court.

^98:1 Chinese, Maming; Japanese, Memyo. As'vaghosha means the Neighing Horse, and it is striking that he is in certain Japanese books connected with the "White Horse," which is one of the forms he is said to assume, e.g. in amulets.

^98:2 Smith, "Early History of India."

^99:1 The "compassionate fowl" I have found in Japanese sources, besides those mentioned by Suzuki. It is said that As'vaghosha not only appeared in the forms of a thousand white horses, but that he also caused a thousand white birds to sing, Issen no hakuba to genji, issen no hakucho wo nakashimu. It is said of him that he was a manifestation or temporary incarnation of Dai Komyo Nyorai, "the great Tathagata of Light," an expression which some explain as Vairoc'ana, others as Amitabha.