3 Review(s)

Sir Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia ends very early in the great ministry. Adam Beck continues this story to the death of the Buddha. What is more, he has enriched it with many scriptures and ancient traditions unknown to and unused by Sir Edwin. One great difficulty for scholars of Buddhism lies in translating the works for the public as the works of one language fail to represent the thought of another. Adam Beck has employed Pali or Sanskrit words and names alternatively as they would be more familiar or easier to remember. The prose thus composed by the author reads like divine poetry. Following up from where Sir Edwin left, Adam Beck makes the account of the life of the Buddha simple and absorbing using the craft of a master chronicle. The account ends with the arrival of the world honoured to the Sal grove of the Malla people at Kusinara, and the Buddha’s passing into Nirvana.