Part 4 - Lalitavistara (the exhaustive story of the sport of the Buddha)

It [Lalitavistara] is considered as one of the holiest texts of the Mahāyāna and calls itself as one of the holiest texts of the Mahāyāna and a Vaipulya-sūtra—a common term for Mahāyāna Sūtras and exhibits all features of a Mahāyāna-Sūtra. The title "Lalita-Vistara" (The exhaustive story of the sport of the Buddha) represents the Mahāyāna idea. This book presents the narration of the life and acts of the Buddha in the form of play-full act (Lalita) of a superhuman being. The book contains 27 chapters in all. The biography of the Buddha forms the main content of the work. It covers the life of the Buddha from the time of his being in the Tusita heaven upto his attainment of enlightenment at Uruvela. This book appears the Buddha-biography of the Sarvāstivāda School, enlarged and embellished in the spirit of the Mahāyāna. This work was already translated into Chinese as early as in the 1st century A. D. This work was known to the artists, who about 850-900 A. D. decorated with their sculpture the famous temple of Boro-Budur in Java.