Songs of the Sons and Daughters of Buddha

by Andrew Schelling (Translator)

Presents a collection of poetry and verses, written more than two thousand years ago by some of the earliest known disciples of the Buddha, including works from the Therigathas, the oldest collection of poetry by women. Original.

Genres: Poetry, Spirituality, India

112 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1996

About the author

Andrew Schelling is a poet, essayist, and translator of the poetry of India. He has taught at Naropa University for twenty years and from 1993–96 served as chair of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics founded by Alan Ginsburg and Anne Waldman. His publications include Tea Shack Interior and The Wisdom Anthology of North American Buddhist Poetry. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A selection of short, sharp-edged poems from the earliest centuries of the followers of the Buddha. From the translators' afterword: "The singers of the gathas were members of an edgy, innovative community that gathered around Buddha's teachings. They had no centers of learning, no monasteries, no administrators, no universities. Having renounced the cities or villages of old India, they lived on the road. They slept in fields, forests, city parks, caves, or alongside footpaths and horse tracks. Twenty-five hundred years ago they begged their food, practices with urgency, and knew they were forming a revolutionary discipline. Many invented a song or two, which we are lucky to have." (140)

[Greg Masters · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems of renunciation of worldly aspirations and devotion to the Dharma (the ways of the Buddha) sparkle with lucidity and provide stark testimony of unsatisfied lives transformed owing to discovery of the Buddha. The texts are relatable even for those with little interest in spiritual practice. The poems, passed down in oral form from the earliest disciples, consist of common folk speaking in language – as rendered by the translators – that is plain, unadorned and communicates passion with immediacy.