Originally written in the First Century, A.D. by Asvaghosha. This may be the oldest known story of the complete life of Buddha, having been written in the first century AD. The author was an educated ecclesiastic Buddhist who traveled throughout India collecting stories and traditions relating to the Buddhas life. He was a famous preacher and musician who then wove them into a Sanskrit poem which he performed musically during his travels. The people of India delighted in this magical tale whenever it was performed with the choir of musicians who traveled with him. It holds many facts that other biographies or stories of the Buddha dont have, which makes this work so important. The entire epic is preserved in this rare book, long out of print, which may have otherwise been lost to the western world.

The Buddhacarita is the most famous work of Asvaghosa, the well-known Buddhist poet-philosopher supposed to have been a contemporary of King Kaniska of the early 2nd century a.c. Of the twenty-eight cantos of the epic poem a little less than half is now available in the original, but complete translations in Chinese and Tibetan have been preserved. This edition consists of three parts. The first part contains the Sanskrit text and the second the translation of the first fourteen cantos, filling up the lacunae in the Sanskrit from the Tibetan, together with an Introduction dealing with various aspects of the poet`s works, with notes which discuss the many difficulites of text and translation, and an Index. The third part contains translation of Cantos XV-XXVIII based on the available Tibetan and Chinese versions so as to arrive as near the meaning of Asvaghosa`s original text. The poem falls into four distinct quarters of seven cantos describing birth and youth of the hero, enlightenment after long questing, how the Buddha made his discovery by teaching available to all beings, a mission ending with a universal conquest in which the hero converts the rulers and people in many countries to the new doctrine and the events leading up to the Parinirvana of the Buddha.

A blueprint for a life of mindfulness, dedicated to the easing of suffering both for oneself and for others The story of Shakyamuni Buddha’s epic journey to enlightenment is perhaps the most important narrative in the Buddhist tradition. Tenzin Chögyel’sThe Life of the Buddha, composed in the mid–eighteenth century and now in a vivid new translation, is a masterly storyteller’s rendition of the twelve acts of the Buddha. Chögyel’s classical tale seamlessly weaves together the vast and the minute, the earthly and the celestial, reflecting the near-omnipresent aid of the gods alongside the Buddha’s moving final reunion with his devoted son, Rahula. The Life of the Buddha has the power to engage people through a deeply human story with cosmic implications. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Do What Thou Wilt: An exploration into the life and works of a modern mystic, occultist, poet, mountaineer, and bisexual adventurer known to his contemporaries as "The Great Beast" Aleister Crowley was a groundbreaking poet and an iconoclastic visionary whose literary and cultural legacy extends far beyond the limits of his notoriety as a practitioner of the occult arts. Born in 1875 to devout Christian parents, young Aleister's devotion scarcely outlived his father, who died when the boy was twelve. He reached maturity in the boarding schools and brothels of Victorian England, trained to become a world-class mountain climber, and seldom persisted with any endeavor in which he could be bested. Like many self-styled illuminati of his class and generation, the hedonistic Crowley gravitated toward the occult. An aspiring poet and a pampered wastrel - obsessed with reconciling his quest for spiritual perfection and his inclination do exactly as he liked in the earthly realm - Crowley developed his own school of mysticism. Magick, as he called it, summoned its users to embrace the imagination and to glorify the will. Crowley often explored his spiritual yearnings through drug-saturated vision quests and rampant sexual adventurism, but at other times he embraced Eastern philosophies and sought enlightenment on ascetic sojourns into the wilderness. This controversial individual, a frightening mixture of egomania and self-loathing, has inspired passionate - but seldom fair - assessments from historians. Lawrence Sutin, by treating Crowley as a cultural phenomenon, and not simply a sorcerer or a charlatan, convinces skeptic readers that the self-styled "Beast" remains a fascinating study in how one man devoted his life to the subversion of the dominant moral and religious values of his time.