ABSTRACT
There is no continuous life of Buddha 1 in the Scriptures. The isolated events found therein have in some cases been woven by the commentators, along with additional incidents, into a longer narrative. The Jātaka commentator, in order to introduce the tales of Buddha’s previous births, gives an account of his life down to the time when he is supposed to have begun to illustrate his preaching by these tales. The commentator of the Buddhavaṃsa is able to specify the various places where Buddha kept Retreat during the rainy season for the first twenty years of his ministry. The Sanskrit works also show a similar development. First there are the separate legends of the commentaries (preserved in the Tibetan) and those of the Mahāvastu ; and these in the Lalita-vistara and similar works have been elaborated into a regular biography.
