Lives of Buddha (6): Phu-yau-king

The next life of Buddha, in point of date, is the second version of the Lalita Vistara, known in China as the Phū-yau-king.

This was translated by the Indian priest Dharmarakṣa, during the Western Tsin dynasty, about A.D. 300. It is in eight chapters, and belongs to the expanded class of Buddhist literature. The story of Buddha's life is here told from his birth to his death, but in the exaggerated and wearisome form peculiar to the works of this (expanded) school. It would seem as if the idea of merit attaching to the reproduction of every word of the sacred books had led the later writers, not only to reproduce the original, but to introduce, by an easy but tiresome method, the repetition of a simple idea under a multitude of verbal forms, and so secure additional merit^[1].