Lives Lived, Lives Imagined ─ Biography in the Buddhist Traditions

From the Buddha in ancient India to a nun in modern-day Los Angeles, Livesd Lives, Imagined crosses time, traditions, and cultures to present fascinating depictions of lives of those on the Buddhist path. Buddhist biographies come to life in many forms: they come from known poets and anonymous compilers; they are told by bards and even enacted by performers; they may be autobiographies, either public or secret. Equally diverse have been the purposes they have served---as models for emulation, as origin stories for a particular community or lineage, as narrative explications of doctrine.

Lives Lived, Lives Imagined, a collection of papers presented at a conference at the University of Oxford, presents a multifaceted, multitradition portrait of Buddhist biographies. Part I deals with biographies of the Buddha, investigating Chinese and Pali sources and the Sanskrit dramatizations of Asvaghosa. Part II contains modern Buddhist life-stories, including a rare autobiography from Burma. Part III explores the Tibetan tradition, including such well-known figures as Milarepa, Shakya Chog-den, and Karmapa Mikyo Dorje. Together, these biographies and studies reveal the rich diversity of Buddhism's myriad incarnations over its long history and the dynamic scope of Buddhist thought and practice.

Linda Covill received her DPhil from the University of Oxford and is the author of a translation and a study of the Saundarananda.
Ulrike Roesler teaches Indian studies at the University of Freiburg in Germany and specializes in the history of the Tibetan Kadampa tradition.
Sarah Shaw teaches for Oxford University Department for Continuing Education and for Randolph College and Taylor University in the U.S., and is a member of Wolfson College, Oxford.