Word: ashvaghosha
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...cantos of the Buddhacarita are spectacularly imagined. The theologian Ashvaghosha's ancient epic courses over 80 years, the entirety of the Buddha's journey toward nirvana and death. It fleshes out, warts and all, the more popular image of the Buddha as an eternally serene spiritual master. First, there's his auspicious birth, as Siddhartha Gautama, in the 6th century B.C. in what is now Nepal. His family is so obscenely rich ("like the Indus with the rush of waters") that they sacrifice 100,000 milk cows for the occasion. A diviner foretells Siddhartha's salvific destiny: "This...
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