Abstract:
During the Buddha’s lifetime, it was not important the complete biography of the
Gotama Buddha; but after his demise the disciples felt as an important issue for
connecting the biography from the fragments throughout the early Buddhist
literature both in Lalitavistara (after this will use as LV) of VaipulyaSūtra and the
Jātakanidāna (after this will use as JN) inTheravādaBuddhist literature. LV is the
first attempt of connecting the life of the Buddha which has two
purposes:providing full biography of the Buddha and at the same time elevating
the Buddha higher than others beings, while JN was second attempt of connecting
the historical Buddha based on early Buddhist texts and post-canonical texts of
Buddhavaṃsa and Cariyapiṭakafor the purpose of connecting the Buddha’s
biography.In many instances parallel are found between the two texts on the
biography of the Gautama Buddhasuch birth,Māyā’s dream, unsullied in the
wombs, Māyā’s died in the seventh of Bodhisatta’s birth and so forth.The aim of
this paper is to study from critical analysis of the similarity of the Gotama
Buddha’s biography between early Mahāyana and the Theravāda Buddhism based
on the two texts. In order to achieve the aim, it will discuss the main parallel events
of the Gautama Buddha’s biography by giving reasons in the context of
Brahmanical society in ancient India and the concept of the development of
Buddha concept.
