A SUMMARY OF THE MAHĀVASTU – BIMALA CHURN LAW

A Summary of the Mahāvastu

by Bimala Churn Law
with a note by Dr. A. Berriedale Keith

Note to the Digital Edition
This book was originally titled A Study of the Mahāvastu by its author Bimala Churn Law. However, it does not so much study the text, as summarise it, and I have therefore renamed the digital edition to reflect the actual contents of the book.

The work was largely prepared by Donny Hacker from a text that had been OCRed from a pdf, and most of the credit for this being published online now must go to him. In going through it while preparing the final edition I found there were many wrong transliterations that had been printed by Law in his original edition, which I have quietly corrected according to the text of Mahāvastu.

Law’s English was occasionally wanting, not in any major way, but in numerous small ways, which I have also corrected; and I have also converted some references that Law chose to print in the text itself into footnotes, which is where they more properly belong. Law printed his Part II as one long collection of Stories, but upon examination it turned out these were two groups, one of Jātaka Stories, the other, Stories of the Disciples. I have redivided and retitled the text to reflect this.

Because of these changes, although they make no difference to the substance of the text, anyone wishing to quote the book would be better to check it against the original printed edition, or a pdf copy of such.

Ānandajoti Bhikkhu
October 2016