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By Āryaśūra
Translated by Justin Meiland

The “Garland of Past Lives” is a collection of thirty four stories depicting the miraculous deeds performed by the Buddha in his previous rebirths. Composed in the fourth century C.E. by the Buddhist monk Arya·shura, the text’s accomplished artistry led Indian aesthetic theorists to praise its elegant mixture of verse and prose.

The twenty stories in this first volume deal primarily with the virtues of giving and morality. Ascetics sacrifice their lives for hungry tigers, kings open their veins for demons to drink their blood, helmsmen steer their crew through perilous seas, and quail chicks quench forest fires by proclaiming words of truth.

The experience is intended to arouse astonishment in the audience, inspiring devotion through the future Buddha’s transcendence of conventional norms in his quest to acquire enlightenment and save the world from suffering. The importance of such stories of past lives in traditional Buddhist culture, throughout Asia and up to today, cannot be overestimated.

c. 550 pp  |  ISBN 978-0-8147-9581-1  |  Co-published by New York University Press and JJC Foundation

About the Translator
Justin Meiland is Lecturer in Buddhist Studies at Mahidol University, Bangkok. He has also translated Maha·bhárata IX: Shalya volume one and volume two for the CSL.