Clerics › Religious Figure
Sanghasena
Fifth-century Indian monk who compiled the Hundred Parables Sutra (originally the Garland of Folly), translated into Chinese at Jiankang in 492 by his disciple Gunavrddhi.
In a temple courtyard at dusk, a great bronze bell hangs at the right and incense smoke rises from a bronze urn; monks in orange robes and plainly dressed visitors walk toward a lamplit hall, lotus flowers bloom in a stone basin, and a gold prayer wheel stands at the left.
Also known as Venerable Sanghasena
Sanghasena was an Indian monk of about the fifth century whose life is otherwise unknown. He drew parables from the Buddhist scriptures and compiled them into a collection originally titled the Garland of Folly; its colophon reads 'the Venerable Sanghasena completed the Garland of Folly'. His disciple Gunavrddhi, a monk from central India, came to China and in 492 translated it at Jiankang under the Southern Qi as the Hundred Parables Sutra, as recorded in Sengyou's Chu sanzang jiji. The book teaches Buddhist ideas through simple fables, and idioms such as 'a castle in the air' come from its stories.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; Indian monk of the 5th century CE; his Hundred Parables was translated into Chinese in 492