Sugata Saurabha

This book is the English translation of Sugata Saurabha, a poetic rendering of the Buddha's life, published in 1947 in the Nepalese language, Newari, by Chittadhar Hrdaya, one of the greatest literary figures from Nepal in the twentieth century. Sugata Saurabha (“The Fragrant Life of the Buddha”) is a remarkable text for its comprehensiveness, artistry, and nuance. Remarkably, this work was composed while Chittadhar was jailed for five years for the crime of publishing a poem in his native language. Sugata Saurabha covers the Buddha's life from birth to enlightenment to death, according to the classical sources, and conveys his basic teachings with simple clarity and narrative subtlety. What makes this nineteen-chapter epic of additional interest is the author's insertions, where the classical sources are silent, of details on the Buddha's life and sociocultural context that are Nepalese. The effect is to humanize the founder and add the texture of real-life detail. A third level of artistry is the modernist perspective that underlies the poet's manner of retelling this great spiritual narrative. This rendering from the Kathmandu Valley, in a long line of accounts of the Buddha's life dating back almost two thousand years, may be the last ever written in the tradition of Indic classic poetry (kāvya). Sugata Saurabha provides an aesthetically pleasing and doctrinally sound comprehensive account of the Buddha's life and is of interest to Buddhist devotees and suitable for classroom use.

Aesthetics · Art · Buddhism · Gautama Buddha · Literature · Narrative · Poetry · History · Media, Religion, Digital Communication

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