It
was not until the 2nd century AD that the first complete
biographies of the Buddha were
written. At this time two works both titled Buddhacarita,
meaning the life of the Buddha, were composed by monk
poets at the court of the great Buddhist emperor Kaniska.
The first of these was written by Sangharaksa and was
a combination of verse and prose, and although the original
Sanskrit has been lost, a Chinese translation of it still
exists. The second of these works was written by the celebrated
poet Asvaghosa.
In
28 chapters Asvaghosa uses striking imagery and polished
language to tell the Buddha's life from his birth to events
immediately after his death. Based closely on the biographical
information in the Pali Tipitaka
Asvaghosa's Buddhacarita is remarkably free from the mythological
accretions that surrounded the Buddha at the time, and
is widely considered a masterpiece of Sanskrit literature.
E.H.
Johnstone, The Buddhacarita or Acts of the Buddha,
Calcutta, 1939.
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