Reading Assignments Page
"Buddhacarita" ("The Acts of the Buddha") (EWBR pp. 113-116)
This first biography of the Buddha, which appeared in the first or second century CE (some 400 or 500 years after Siddhartha's death), is a "pious reconstruction" atributed to the Indian poet Ashvaghosha that offers the life of the Buddha as guidance for the Buddhist way.
The Buddha Preaches the Dharma to His Father (see below)
Here is how Ashvaghosha describes Siddhartha's first meeting with his father after his son's enlightenment:
In due course the Buddha went to Kapilavastu, and preached the Dharma to his father. He also displayed to him his proficiency in wonderworking power, thereby making him more ready to receive his Dharma.
His father was overjoyed by what he heard, folded his hands, and said to him: 'Wise and fruitful are your deeds, and you have released me from great suffering. Instead of rejoicing at the gift of the earth, which brings nothing but sorrow, I will now rejoice at having so fruitful a son.
'You were right to go away and give up your prosperous home. It was right of you to have toiled with such great labours. And now it is right of you that you should have compassion on us, your dear relations, who loved you so dearly, and whom you did leave. For the sake of the world in distress you have trodden the path to supreme reality, which could not be found even by those seers of olden times who were gods or kings.
'If you had chosen to become a universal monarch, that could have given me no more joy than I have now felt at the sight of your miraculous powers and of your holy Dharma. . . .'
(Source: Edward Conze, trans., Buddhist Scriptures. London: Penguin, 1959, pp. 56-57.)