Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s2.t17.11

v2.c10.s2.t17.11

*Buddhacarita* is a biography of Buddha, and its Chinese translation contains five books, 28 chapters and about 9,300 lines and more than 46,000 words. The poet told in great details the life of Gautama Buddha from his birth until his attainment of Nirvana. The first 14 chapters are about his family, his marriage, his travels, ascetic practices, and meditation, and the remaining 14 chapters are about his first teaching, disciples and preaches. Lengthy and homiletic, yet, overall, this epic achieves a unity between form and contents. Then, it was also the first long poem in history of Chinese literature, and from then on, blank verse entered and expanded in China.