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Jinacaritaṁ:
The Life of the Victorious Buddha
A Pāli and English line by line (interlinear) version of this Medieval verse biography of the Buddha from his Bodhisatta aspiration to the founding of the Jetavana monastery (together with extensive annotation).
Original Pāḷi Poem
by
Venerable Medhaṅkara Thera
edited and translated by
Ānandajoti Bhikkhu
eBooks
English Only
with a reading of the translation
Html Table of Contents (outline)
1: The Story of the Distant Past
2: The Story of the Not-So-Distant Past
Html Table of Contents (detailed)
1: The Story of the Distant Past
The Story of Sumedha
The Story of the Going Forth
The Story of Buddha Dipaṅkarakathā
The Story of the Resolution
The Story of the Perfections
2: The Story of the Not-So-Distant Past
The Story of the Conception
The Story of the Birth
The Story of the (32) Wonders
The Story of Ascetic Kāladevala
The Story of the Ploughing Festival
The Story of the Palaces
The Story of the Signs
The Story of the Great Renunciation
The Story of the Departure
The Story in Rājagaha
The Story of Sujāta
The Story around the Bodhi Tree
The Story of the Defeat of Māra
The Story of the Complete Awakening
3: The Story of the Present Time
The Story of the Seven Weeks
The Story of Brahmā’s Request
The Story of the Rolling of the Dhamma Wheel
The Story of King Bimbisāra
The Story of the Visit to the Sakyans
The Story of Yasodharā
The Story of Jeta’s Wood
The Story of the Rain’s Residences
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Elsewhere on this Website:
Jinacaritaṁ (Established Text and Analysis)
The Life of the Victorious Buddha (English Only)
* * *
Medieval works, and verse texts especially, are much more difficult to understand and follow than are the Canonical texts, owing to the often very involved sentence structure, long compounds, and difficult similies that are used. Therefore in this text and translation of Jinacaritaṁ I have also given an analysis of the verse before the translation is given, so as to break up the compounds into their components, and re-organise the sentence as it would be if written with the same words in prose.The idea for this came from the Sinhala Vyākhās I consulted, but my analysis often differs from the ones given there.
Many adjectives and adjectival phrases are employed in the descriptions, which add greatly to the beauty of the poem, see, for instance, the description of the Himālaya which runs for 10 verses vv. 22-31; or Kāludāyī’s description of Kapilavatthu: vv. 347-352. But the piling up of adjectives and adjectival phrases which normally occur in Indian languages before the object they describe, presents some difficulties for someone translating into English. The problem is not always solved satisfactorily, and I have occasionally had to bring words forward from quite remote verses in order to make the sense clear.
Similarly, as word order is different in English than in Pāḷi, and as the syntax of Medieval composition, unlike the Canonical practice, allows for sentences to run over many verses, it has sometimes been necessary to take two or more verses at a time in the translation. There is a simplified version of the translation in the Texts in English Only section.
Anandajoti Bhikkhu,
June, 2007