Buddha: References & Edit History

Translations of influential traditional biographies of the Buddha include E.H. Johnston (trans.), The Buddhacarita; or, Acts of the Buddha, 2 vol. (1935–36, reprinted 2 vol. in 1, 1972), a translation of the famous poem by Ashvaghosa. William Woodville rockhill (trans.), The Life of the Buddha and the Early History of His Order (1884, reprinted 1976), is a translation from Tibetan of the biography found in the vinaya of the Mulasarvastivada sect. N.A. Jayawickrama, The Story of Gotama Buddha: The Nidāna-kathā of the Jātakattha-kathā (1990), provides a translation of an important Pali biography. The Voice of the Buddha, the Beauty of Compassion, 2 vol. (1983), is a translation of Philippe Edouard Foucaux’s 1884 French rendering of the extravagant Sanskrit biography the Lalitavistara. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (ed.), Buddhism in Practice (1995), pp. 39–180, contains translations of texts from a number of Buddhist traditions concerning the Buddha in his various forms.

Studies of the development of the Buddha’s biography include Étienne Lamotte, History of Indian Buddhism: From the Origins to the Śaka Era (1988; originally published in French, 1958), pp. 639–685, which identifies some of the important sectarian and historical factors that shaped the biographies; Frank E. Reynolds, “The Many Lives of Buddha: A Study of Sacred Biography and Theravāda Tradition,” chapter 1 in Frank E. Reynolds and Donald Capps (eds.), The Biographical Process: Studies in the History and Psychology of Religion (1976), pp. 37–61; and Frank E. Reynolds and Charles Hallisey, “The Buddha,” chapter 2 in Joseph M. Kitagawa and Mark D. Cummings (eds.), Buddhism and Asian History (1989), pp. 29–49, which provides useful surveys of the past century of scholarship on the development of the biographical cycles. Juliane Schober (ed.), Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia (1997), contains essays on manifestations of the biography of the Buddha in texts, icons, and local practices.

Important biographies of the Buddha by modern scholars include Hermann Oldenberg, Buddha: His Life, His Doctrine, His Order, trans. by William Hoey (1882; originally published in German, 1881), which draws exclusively on Pali sources in an attempt to separate history from legend; Bhikku Nanamoli, The Life of the Buddha, According to the Pali Canon, The Oldest Authentic Record (1972), which arranges the various events described in the Pali canon and places them in chronological order; A. Foucher, La Vie du Bouddha (1949; abridged translation The Life of the Buddha, According to the Ancient Texts and Monuments of India, 1963), which explores the events of Buddha’s life as represented in Indian art and architecture; and Edward J. Thomas, The Life of Buddha As Legend and History (1927), which also considers Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan sources. Hajime Nakamura, Gotama Buddha (1977), is an English translation of part 1 of the author’s important study in Japanese. The scholarly debate concerning the dating of the historical Buddha is collected in Heinz Bechert (ed.), When Did the Buddha Live? (1995).

John S. Strong, The Buddha: A Short Biography (2001), is a very useful survey of the events of the Buddha’s previous lives and final lifetime, with analyses of their meaning. Also of interest is Donald S. Lopez, Jr., From Stone to Flesh: A Short History of the Buddha (2012).