1894 Rare Edition - THE LIGHT OF ASIA or The Great Renunciation. Being The Life and Teaching of Gautama Prince of India and Founder of Buddhism.

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(Description)

Author: Sir Edwin Arnold. 
Title: THE LIGHT OF ASIA or The Great Renunciation (Mahabhinishkramana). Being The Life and Teaching of Gautama Prince of India and Founder of Buddhism (as told in verse by an Indian Buddhist).
Publisher: New York, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, 1894. First thus.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 8 " X 5.5 ".
Pages: x-233 pages.
Binding: Attractive and very good original full cloth binding beautifully gilt decorated (hinges fine, overall slightly scuffed - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. Upper edge gilt. Scarce in this wonderful variant binding!
Content: Very good content (bright, tight and clean, last endpaper inner hinge worn but still tight - as shown, rare light foxing or staining - as shown).
Illustrations: Nicely illustrated with a frontispiece portrait and four full-page plates.

Estimate: (Scarce with no or few other copies in this binding variant available for sale worldwide)

The book: Scarce in this wonderful variant binding! Attractive, illustrated edition of The Light of Asia, or The Great Renunciation (Mahâbhinishkramana), -- 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 endeavours to describe the life and time of Prince Gautama Buddha, 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. Arnold's book was one of the first successful efforts to popularize Buddhism for a Western readership. After receiving the poem from theosophists, Mahatma Gandhi was awed and his subsequent introduction to Madame Blavatsky and her Key to Theosophy inspired him to study his own religion.
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 over thirty languages, including Hindi.

The author: Sir Edwin Arnold KCIE CSI (10 June 1832 – 24 March 1904) was an English poet and journalist, who is most known for his work The Light of Asia.