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Psychology & SocietyThe Light of AsiaEdwin ArnoldThe Light of Asia

The Light of Asia

Edwin Arnold

Psychology & SocietyEnglish
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In eight books of blank verse, Sir Edwin Arnold tells the life of Prince Siddhartha, the Buddha, as an Indian Buddhist might tell it: his sheltered youth in…

Catalogue details

Author
Edwin Arnold
Category
Psychology & Society
Language
English
Source
Project Gutenberg

About this book

In eight books of blank verse, Sir Edwin Arnold tells the life of Prince Siddhartha, the Buddha, as an Indian Buddhist might tell it: his sheltered youth in a palace of pleasures, his marriage to the beautiful Yasodhara, the four sights of an old man, a sick man, a corpse and a holy man that awaken him to suffering, his flight from the palace, his years of searching, his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, and his teaching of the path to freedom from suffering.

Context and significance

Published in 1879, the poem sold hundreds of thousands of copies and introduced Buddhism to a generation of Western readers; the young Gandhi read it in London. Arnold (1832–1904) also translated the Bhagavad Gita as The Song Celestial. Compare The Dhammapada and Hesse's Siddhartha.

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