In Praise of Buddha’s Acts (#320)

* In Praise of Buddha’s Acts

* In Praise of Buddha’s Acts (additions and changes)

_content/monographs/in-praise-of-buddha’s-acts_willemen-charles.md

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+---
+title: "Buddhacarita: In Praise of Buddha’s Acts"
+translator: "Charles Willemen"
+external_url: "https://bdkamerica.org/download/1896"
+drive_links:
+  - "https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ogsp86UfZguXkm1Z_qVrd2fCggIxKfX0/view?usp=sharing"
+course: canonical-poetry
+tags:
+  - buddha
+  - mahayana-roots
+  - classical-poetry
+  - literature
+year: 2009
+olid: OL28017907M
+oclc: 643081176
+publisher: bdk
+pages: 216
+---
+
+> Aśvaghoṣa was fascinated by conversion. The Buddhacarita was composed
+in order to convert, as the last words of the text clearly state...As an excellent teacher and
+propagator of the Law, Aśvaghoṣa could be called a bodhisattva. Excellent
+teachers were called bodhisattvas in China, a habit that may have originated in
+Dharmaguptaka circle
+
+This work is a translation of the Chinese version of Aśvaghoṣa's famous Buddhacarita (Life of Śākyamuni Gautama Buddha) by Charles Willemen. The Chinese texts, and the Tibetan for that matter, differ from the extant Sanskrit edition in one major aspect: while the Sanskrit version ends after the Buddha's victory over Mara and attaining awakening, the Chinese version deals with the remainder of the Buddha's life. Scholarship generally asserts that the extant Sanskrit edition is incomplete, indicating that the chapters dealing with the Buddha's life post-awakening are missing, not that these chapters were added later by other authors.