rd a mass of evidence
to show that As'vagho@sa was a contemporary of Kani@ska.]

[Footnote 3: Taranatha says that he was converted by Aryadeva, a disciple
of Nagarjuna, _Geschichte des Buddhismus_, German translation by Schiefner,
pp. 84-85. See Suzuki's _Awakening of Faith_, pp. 24-32. As'vagho@sa wrote
the _Buddhacaritakavya_, of great poetical excellence, and the
_Mahala@mkaras'astra_. He was also a musician and had invented a musical
instrument called Rastavara that he might by that means convert the
people of the city. "Its melody was classical, mournful, and melodious,
inducing the audience to ponder on the misery, emptiness, and non-atmanness
of life." Suzuki, p. 35.]

130

He held that in the soul two aspects may be distinguished
--the aspect as thatness (_bhutatathata_) and the aspect as the cycle
of birth and death (_sa@msara_). The soul as bhutatathata means
the oneness of the totality of all things (_dharmadhatu_). Its essential
nature is uncreate and external. All things simply on account
of the beginningless traces of the incipient and unconscious
memory of our past experiences of many previous lives (_sm@rti_)
appear under the forms of individuation [Footnote ref 1]. If we could
overcome this sm@rti "the signs of individuation would disappear and
there would be no trace of a world of objects." "All things in their
fundamental nature are not nameable or explicable. They cannot
be adequately expressed in any form of language. They
possess absolute sameness (_samata_). They are subject neither to
transformation nor to destruction. They are nothing but one soul"
--thatness (_bhutatathata_). This "thatness" has no attribute and
it can only be somehow pointed out in speech as "thatness."
As soon as you understand that when the totality of existence is
spoken of or thought of, there is neither that which speaks nor
that which is spoken of, there is neither that which thinks nor
that which is thought of, "this is the stage of thatness." This
bhutatathata is neither that which is existence, nor that which is
non-existence, nor that which is at once existence and non-existence,
nor that which is not at once existence and non-existence;
it is neither that which is plurality, nor that which is
at once unity and plurality, nor that which is not at once unity
and plurality. It is a negative concept in the sense that it is
beyond all that is conditional and yet it is a positive concept
in the sense that it holds