Gandhara

2nd century Buddhist Indian poet and philosopher

Aśvaghoṣa, also transliteratedAshvaghosha (Sanskrit:[ˌɐɕʋɐˈɡʱoːʂɐ], अश्वघोष; lit.

"Having a Horse-Voice"; Tibetan: སློབ་དཔོན་དཔའ་བོ།, Wylie: slob dpon dpa' bo; Chinese: 馬鳴菩薩; pinyin: Mǎmíng púsà; lit. 'Bodhisattva with a Horse-Voice') (c. 80 – c. 150CE), was a Buddhist philosopher, dramatist, poet, musician, and orator from India.

He was born in Saketa, today known as Ayodhya.^[1][2][3]

He is believed to have been the first Sanskrit dramatist, and is considered the greatest Indian poet prior to Kālidāsa.

It seems probable that he was the contemporary and spiritual adviser of Kanishka in the first century of our era.^[4] He was the most famous in a group of Buddhist court writers, whose epics rivaled the contemporary Ramayana.^[5] Whereas much of Buddhist literature prior to the time of Aśvaghoṣa had been composed in Pāl