Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Lalitavistara – 36
Lalitavistara,” is really a translation of our text (Winternitz, Wiener
Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes 1912, p. 241 f.) A precise
rendering of the Sanskrit text is in the Tibetan, which was only [26]
produced in the 5th century. It has been edited and translated into
French by Foucaux. It may be taken for certain that a version little
different from our Lalitavistara was known to the artists who about
850-900 decorated with images the celebrated temple of Borobudur
in Java. For these magnificent scriptures represent scenes in the
legend of the Buddha in a manner as if the artists were working with
the text of the Lalitavistara in the hand. And Pleyte has simply
recapitulated the entire contents of the Lalitavistara as an
explanation of the sculptures (The Buddha legend in the sculpture in
the temple of Borobudur, Amsterdam, 1901. See also Speyer La
Museon 1903, p. 124 ff).
Relation to Buddhist Art
But the artists who embellished the Greco-Buddhistic monuments of
Northern India with scenes from the life of the Buddha are also
already familiar with the Buddha legend as related in the
Lalitavistara. They worked no doubt not after the text, but in
accordance with living oral tradition. The harmony, nevertheless,
between the sculptures and the Sanskrit text is not rarely of such a
character that we must assume that the literary tradition was at times
influenced by the artist. Upon art and literature there was mutual
influence.
The authorities to be consulted here are L’art Greco-bouddhique du
Gandhāra, part I, 324 f. 666 ff; Grunwendel Buddhist Art in lndia,
p.94, 04 f, 134; Senart Orientalistenkongresse XIV, 1905, 1,121 ff;