Lalitavistara

Lalitavistara Sutra

Anonymous / tradition · a composite text; its oldest core verses may date to around the turn of the era, but it reached its current, Mahayana-influenced form by roughly the 3rd century AD · Gandhara (Pakistan) · scripture

Lalitavistara narrates the Buddha's life from a pre-existent bodhisattva's descent from Tushita heaven through the first sermon, casting each conventional biographical episode as a cosmic display staged for beings across multiple world-systems rather than as ordinary human biography. Its place of composition is genuinely uncertain, one of several candidate regions.