ISBN: 9789348911520
Author: E.H. Johnston
Year of Publication: Feb'2025
Binding: PB
Language: English
No. of Pages : 645
ABOUT THE BOOK : The Buddhacarita is the most famous work of Asvaghosa, the well-known Buddhist poet-philosopher supposed to have been a contemporary of King Kaniska of the early 2nd century A.D., of the twenty-eight cantos of the epic poem a little less than half is now available in the original, but complete translations in Chinese and Tibetan have been preserved. This edition consists of three parts. The first part contains the Sanskrit text and the second the translation of the first fourteen cantos, filling up the lacunae in the Sanskrit from the Tibetan, together with an introduction dealing with various aspects of the poet's works, with notes which discuss the many difficulties of text and translation and an Index. The third part contains translation of Cantos XV-XXVIII based on the available Tibetan and Chinese versions so as to arrive as near the meaning of Asvaghosa's original text. The poem falls into four distinct quarters of seven cantos describing birth and youth of the hero, enlightenment after long questing, how the Buddha made his discovery by teaching available to all beings, a mission ending with a universal conquest in which the hero converts the rulers and people in many countries to the new doctrine and the events leading up to the Parinirvana of the Buddha.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR : Edward Johnston, CBE (11 February 1872 – 26 November 1944) was a British craftsman who is regarded, with Rudolf Koch, as the father of modern calligraphy, in the particular form of the broad-edged pen as a writing tool.
He is best known as the designer of Johnston, a sans-serif typeface that was used throughout the London Underground system until the 1980s. He also redesigned the famous roundel symbol used throughout the system.