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''The Light of Asia'', subtitled ''The Great Renunciation'', is a book by Sir Edwin Arnold. The first edition of the book was published in London in July 1879. In the form of a narrative poem, the book endeavors to describe the life and time of Prince Gautama Siddhartha, who after attaining enlightenment became The Buddha, The Awakened One. The book presents his life, character, and philosophy, in a series of verses. It is a free adaptation of the Lalitavistara. A few decades before the book's publication, very little was known outside Asia about the Buddha and Buddhism, the religion which he founded, and which had existed for about twenty-five centuries. Arnold's book was one of the first successful attempts to popularize Buddhism for a Western readership.〔Sutin, L.: ''All is Change: The Two-Thousand Year Journey of Buddhism to the West'', Little, Brown and Company, 2006. See pages 141 to 143.〕〔Harvey, P.: ''An Introduction to Buddhism'', Cambridge University Press, 1990. See page 303.〕 The book has been highly acclaimed from the time it was first published, and has been the subject of several reviews. It has been translated into several languages, including Hindi (by Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla). In the 1945 movie version of Oscar Wilde's ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' (1891), as the protagonist turns to a life of depravity, a friend tries to turn him back to a good life by lending him a copy of ''The Light of Asia''. ==Adaptations== A film adaptation of the poem directed by Franz Osten and Himansu Rai was made in 1928, titled, ''Prem Sanyas'' (''The Light of Asia'' in English). Dudley Buck used the book as the basis for an oratorio, ''The Light of Asia'', first performed in 1887.〔Orr, N. Lee (2008). (''Dudley Buck'' ), p. 98. University of Illinois Press〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Light of Asia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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