The Light of Asia

"The Scripture of the Saviour of the World,"

"Below the highest sphere four Regents sit"

"That night the wife of King Suddhodana,"

"The strong hills shook; the waves"

""The dead that are to live, the live who die,"

"The Queen shall bear a boy, a holy child"

"With coral shields: the Angel of the North,"

"The King gave order that his town should keep"

"'Mongst the strangers came"

"...Thou wilt preach the Law and save all flesh"

"Dear to all gods and men for this great birth,"

""Who is the wisest man, great sirs," he asked,"

"And, on a day found fortunate, the Prince"

""Acharya, I write," ...replied"

"Now, when our Lord was come to eighteen years,"

"Delicious gardens round about them bloomed,"

"Which the King marking, called his Ministers:"

"Like everything the British poet Edwin Arnold wrote, The Light of Asia was quickly written: a poem in eight books of about five hundred lines each, mostly in blank verse, composed over a period of several months when Arnold was busy with other concerns. Immediately upon its publication in the summer of 1879, the poem began to sell copies and win attention. It was a life of Siddhartha Gautama, told from the point of view of “an Indian Buddhist” (so read the title page) in high English style. The immediate sensation surrounding The Light of Asia was remarkable: for some time on both sides of the Atlantic, newspapers and dining rooms were charged with discussion about the Buddha, his teaching, and Arnold’s presentation of Buddhism. The book’s success was also sustained. By 1885 the authorized English version had gone through thirty editions. Pirated editions, which went for as little as three cents in the U.S., make a count of the book’s circulation impossible, but it has been estimated at a million copies (not far short of Huckleberry Finn). After thirty years it had become one of the undisputed bestsellers of Victorian England and America, had been translated into a number of languages (German, Dutch, French, Czech, Italian, Swedish, Esperanto), and had inspired a stage version and even an opera."

"Arnold’s great project was a blank verse poem based loosely on the Lalitavistara Sutra. It ran for forty-one thousand words and was composed in eight volumes and published in 1879 as the Light of Asia: the Great Renunciation. The Light of Asia was an instant success and would capture the English speaking imagination. It would be reprinted numerous times in England and the United States. The best estimate I could find was sixty editions in England and another eighty in the US. The Light has also been translated into many languages, including Hindi. But, most importantly, it is generally credited as the first book to bring the life and teachings of Gautama Siddhartha broadly to the attention of the English speaking public."