Serious play: recent scholarship on the Lalitavistara

Silk, J.A. (2022)

Article / Letter to editor

The Lalitavistara is one of the most influential hagiographies of the Buddha. It has been known in Sanskrit since the early days of modern studies of Buddhism, but was long available only in inadequate editions. That has now changed with the publication of the edition of K. Hokazono, now complete in three volumes. The present paper discusses something of the history of the study of the text, Hokazono’s edition, and another recent book by G. Ducoeur that deals with the text, as well as touching on a contribution by Xi He on the poetics of the text. It includes a concordance of a recent translation from Tibetan published by the 84000 project, aligning its sections with the Sanskrit editions of Lefmann and Hokazono.

• All authors: Silk, J.A.
• Date: 2022
• Journal: Indo-Iranian Journal
• Volume: 65
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 267–301
• DOI: doi:10.1163/15728536-06503004
• Link: https://brill.com/view/journals/iij/65/3/article-p267_4.xml?language=en
• Sponsorship: Horizon 2020(H2020)
• Grant number: 741884