Avadāna

Avadāna, legendary material centring on the Buddha’s explanations of events by a person’s worthy deeds in a previous life. The Pāli cognate of the term is Apadāna. Avadāna designates both the class of such stories scattered within the Vinaya Piṭaka (“Basket of Discipline”) and separate collections based upon them. Among the latter is an important anthology of the Sarvāstivāda (“Doctrine That All Is Real”) school given the modern title Divyāvadāna (“Divine Avadāna”), consisting of 38 legends, including some about the great Buddhist emperor Aśoka. The most famous and largest work classified as Avadāna is the Mahāvastu (“Great Story”), a compilation from the Mahāsaṅghika (“Great Community”) school of ancient Buddhism of miraculous events in the life and former lives of the Buddha himself.