Adhyarddhasataka- Hymn of One Hundred-Fifty (Verses) (An Old And Rare Book)

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Adhyarddha-śataka is a famous work by the poet Matrceta, an elder contemporary of king Kanişka (78 A.D.). About the importance of the work and its author I may quote Dr Winternitz¹ :-

King Kaniska at whose Court it is generally assumed that Asvaghosa lived, also invited the poet Matreeţa to the court. Matrceța replied in a letter, called the Mahārāja-kanika-lekha, which has come down in the Tibetan language; he asks the king to excuse him, as he is unable to come owing to his great age. The letter is a poem of 85 verses, containing chiefly admonitions to lead a moral life in the spirit of the Buddha. In verses running over with pity, the poet sends his letter by imploring the king most earnestly to spare the creatures of the forest, and to give up the chase. When the Chinese pilgrim I.tsing (in the 7th century) was travelling in India, Matrceta was a very famous poet, and his hymns to Buddha were sung far and wide. The following legend, which I-tsing heard in India, testifies to his fame. Once when Buddha walking through the forest, a nightingale began to sing sweet melodies, as though she were praising the glory of the Lord, whereupon Buddha said to his disciples that this nightingale would once be reborn as Matrceța. His most famous hymns are the Catuh- Sataka Stotra, "the Hymn of Four Hundred verses," and the Satapañcaśika Stotra, "the Hymn of One Hundred and Fifty verses." Fragments of both of these have come down to us in Central Asian manuscripts. They are poems in Slokas, in simple and unadorned but beautiful language, and they evidently impressed the faithful more by their pious thoughts than by their form.