Lalitavistara
The Lalitavistara,The Description of the (Buddha’s) Play,is an early biography of the Buddha composed in Sanskrit prose and verse in 27 chapters. It seems to be a reworking of an earlier account of the Buddha’s life and its earliest sections may date from about the 1st century BCE, although other sections were still being added as late as the 3rd century CE. The Lalitavistara contains all the main incidents in the Buddha’s biography but surrounds them with the most overblown and exaggerations details. The Buddha is depicted as a god above the gods, always accompanied by a retinue of thousands and performing the most amazing miracles. In this sense it marks the beginning of a trend that led to the complete divorce of the Buddha from historical reality and his eventual deification. The Lalitavistara was enormously popular in India and beyond and was translated into numerous languages. The sides of all the lower terraces on the great temple of Borobudur have hundreds of carved panels on them depicting scenes from the Lalitavistara.
