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Buddhacharita

A sculpture of Buddha sitting
Buddha's First Sermon', India, 11th century

Buddhacharita (Sanskrit: बुद्धचरितम्, romanized: Buddhacaritam; transl. Acts of the Buddha) is an epic poem in the Sanskrit mahakavya style on the life of Gautama Buddha by Aśvaghoṣa of Sāketa (modern Ayodhya), composed in the early second century CE.[1]

The author has prepared an account of the Buddha's life and teachings which, unlike other treatments such as Mahavastu (“Great Story”) and Lalitavistara (“Full Description of the Play [of the Buddha]”), is not only artistically arranged but also restrained in the description of the miracles of Gautam Buddha. His work also reflects a vast knowledge of Indian mythology and pre-Buddhist philosophy, as well as a court poet's interest in love, war, and statecraft.[citation needed]

Of the poem's 28 cantos, only the first 14 are extant in Sanskrit (cantos 15 to 28 are in incomplete form). But in Chinese (5th century) and Tibetan translations, all 28 chapters are preserved. In 420 AD, Dharmakṣema[2] made a Chinese translation, and in the 7th or 8th century, a Tibetan version was composed by an unknown author which "appears to be much closer to the original Sanskrit than the Chinese."[3][4]

  1. ^ Willemen, Charles, transl. (2009), Buddhacarita: In Praise of Buddha's Acts, Berkeley, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, p. XIII.
  2. ^ University of Oslo, Thesaurus Literaturae Buddhicae: Buddhacarita Taisho Tripitaka T.192
  3. ^ Sa dbaṇ bzaṇ po and Blo gros rgyal po, "Saṅs rgyas kyi spyod pa źes bya ba´i sñan dṅags chen po" (Tibetan translation of Buddhacarita), in Tg - bsTan ’gyur (Tibetan Buddhist canon of secondary literature), Derge edition, skyes rabs ge, 1b1-103b2.
  4. ^ E.B. Cowell, trans. The Buddha Carita or the Life of the Buddha, Oxford, Clarendon 1894, reprint: New Delhi, 1977, p. X (introduction).

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