Revisiting the Story of the Buddha’s Life with Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Donald S. Lopez Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan and a longtime Tricycle contributing editor. In his new book, The Buddha: Biography of a Myth, he draws from a variety of sources to trace a single narrative of the Buddha’s life, from his birth through his enlightenment to his passage into nirvana. While a number of scholars have attempted to “demythologize” the Buddha by extracting the man from the myth, Lopez sets out instead to present a remythologized Buddha, highlighting the supernatural elements of his life.<...