Buddha

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by Karen Armstrong

Viking Press

Due/Published February 2001, 205 pages, cloth

ISBN 0670891932

Dante traces the life and complex development - emotional, artistic, philosophical - of this supreme poet-historian, from his wanderings through Tuscan hills and splendid churches to his days as a young soldier fighting for democracy, and to his civic leadership and years of embittered exile from the city that would fiercely reclaim him a century later. Lewis reveals the boy who first encounters the mythic Beatrice, the lyric poet obsessed with love and death, and the grand master of dramatic narrative and allegory, as well as his monumental search for ultimate truth in The Divine Comedy. It is in this masterpiece of self-discovery and redemption that Lewis finds Dante's autobiography - and the sum of all his shifting passions and epiphanies."

Review

As Karen Armstrong explains in her excellent new work, writing a biography of Buddha is a fairly daunting task. What is known about his life, and it's not much, comes through countless texts, written in several different languages by monks who transcribed oral accounts that were composed hundreds of years after his death in 483 B.C.E (or was it 386 B.C.E.? No one knows for sure). Aside from the lack of certainty about the events of Buddha's life, there is also the problem that for many Buddhists the life of Buddha is actually a distraction from his teachings and the path to spiritual enlightenment. Despite all the obstacles, Armstrong provides a vivid and nuanced understanding of the Buddha's life and the times he was living in. She has not written a modern factual biography aimed at separating fact from fiction but allows the materials of both legend and fact to coincide. Perhaps most importantly, she argues that there is an inextricable connection between Buddha's life and his teachings. Buddha viewed his own understanding of the Truth as firmly grounded in his lived experiences. Armstrong has created a picture of the Buddha as a figure who is at once a transcendent being and and an exemplar of very human qualities of gentleness, fairness, equanimity, and impartiality.

For more titles in Buddhism

Also by Karen Armstrong: The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity & Islam.