Life of the Buddha (Clay Sanskrit Library)

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 499 pages
• Published by: NYU Press May 1, 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0814762166
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0814762165
• Book Dimensions: 6.3 x 4.5 x 1.1 inches
• Weighs: 12.6 ounces

Product Description


The books line up on my shelf like bright Bodhisattvas ready to take tough questions or keep quiet company. They stake out a vast territory, with works from two millennia in multiple genres: aphorism, lyric, epic, theater, and romance.
-Willis G. Regier, The Chronicle Review

No effort has been spared to make these little volumes as attractive as possible to readers: the paper is of high quality, the typesetting immaculate. The founders of the series are John and Jennifer Clay, and Sanskritists can only thank them for an initiative intended to make the classics of an ancient Indian language accessible to a modern international audience.
-The Times Higher Education Supplement

The Clay Sanskrit Library represents one of the most admirable publishing projects now afoot. . . . Anyone who loves the look and feel and heft of books will delight in these elegant little volumes.
-New Criterion

Published in the geek-chic format.
-BookForum

Very few collections of Sanskrit deep enough for research are housed anywhere in North America. Now, twenty-five hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha, the ambitious Clay Sanskrit Library may remedy this state of affairs.
-Tricycle

Now an ambitious new publishing project, the Clay Sanskrit Library brings together leading Sanskrit translators and scholars of Indology from around the world to celebrate in translating the beauty and range of classical Sanskrit literature. . . . Published as smart green hardbacks that are small enough to fit into a jeans pocket, the volumes are meant to satisfy both the scholar and the lay reader. Each volume has a transliteration of the original Sanskrit text on the left-hand page and an English translation on the right, as also a helpful introduction and notes. Alongside definitive translations of the great Indian epics - thirty or so volumes will be devoted to the Maha·bhárat itself - Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy verse of Bhartri·hari, the pungent satire of Jayánta Bhatta and the roving narratives of Dandin, among others. All these writers belong properly not just to Indian literature, but to world literature.
-LiveMint

The Clay Sanskrit Library has recently set out to change the scene by making available well-translated dual-language (English and Sanskrit) editions of popular Sanskritic texts for the public.
-Namarupa

The Buddhist monk Ashva·ghosha composed Life of the Buddha in the first or second century CE probably in Ayódhya. This is the earliest surviving text of the Sanskrit literary genre called kavya and probably provided models for Kali·dasa's more famous works. The most poignant scenes on the path to his Awakening are when the young prince Siddhártha, the future Buddha, is confronted by the reality of sickness, old age, and death, while seduced by the charms of the women employed to keep him at home. A poet of the highest order, Ashva·ghosha's aim is not entertainment but instruction, presenting the Buddha's teaching as the culmination of the Brahmanical tradition. His wonderful descriptions of the bodies of courtesans are ultimately meant to show the transience of beauty.

Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation

For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

Reader Reviews
The Clay Sanskrit Library series is, without doubt, a gift from a very benevolent and gracious God (exactly which one of the 330 million is unclear however - but whichever one it is, "thank you"). One of the latest incarnations of this series, Professor Patrick Olivelle's translation of Ashvaghosha's epic poem "Life of the Buddha" is not only a thoughtful and aesthetically pleasing translation but also contains an extremely helpful and fascinating introductory essay. Worth the price of the book nearly on its own the introduction details how Ashvaghosha's work fits into its larger socio-religious milieu - engaging in a dialogue with the Brahmanical tradition over just what "real" dharma truly is. As such, it helps one understand how these traditions of Brahmanism and Buddhism interacted, challenged and developed alongside one another in conversation. I highly recommend this title, not only for the beauty and impact of the poem itself but also for the information Professor Olivelle provides on how to understand the work in its larger context.