The Glorious Deeds Of Purna

The avadana literature is perhaps the largest corpus of Sanskrit Buddhist texts. It is also an extensive body of ancient and medieval Indian story-literature. The Mulasarvastivadin tradition of Northwest India incorporated these stories into its Vinaya, later transmitted to Tibet; the Therava dins of Sri Lanka transmitted them, in Pali, as part of their commentarial literature; the Newars of Nepal preserved them in anthologies and rewrote them in the style of the Hindu Puranas. However, western scholars and practitioners of Buddhism have regarded this vast biographical literature as mere 'edifying tales' and denied them the careful study accorded more explicitly doctrinal or philosophical texts. Yet philosophers and literary critics have long recognized the narrative as one of the essential ways in which we construct our understanding of our world. By providing an annotated translation of, and applying the methods of literary criticism to, a first-century account of the life of the saint Purna, this study introduces the reader to the richness and complexity of a genre which has played an essential role in Buddhist self-understanding for over two thousand years.