buddha biography book pdf

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• Introduction

General considerations

Historical context, sources of the life of the buddha.

• Previous lives
• Birth and early life
• The enlightenment
• The first disciples
• The post-enlightenment period
• The death of the Buddha
• The Buddha’s relics
• Images of the Buddha
• The Mahayana tradition and the reconception of the Buddha
• The doctrine of the three bodies
• The presence of multiple universes

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

• McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia - Buddha, Buddhism
• Age of the Sage - Transmitting the Wisdoms of the Ages - Biography of Buddha
• Khan Academy - The Historical Buddha
• World History Encyclopedia - Siddhartha Gautama
• The Met - Life of the Buddha
• IndiaNetzone - Biography of Gautama Buddha
• Live Science - The Buddha: History, meditation, religion and images
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Buddha
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Buddha
• Buddha - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Buddha - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

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Buddha (born c. 6th–4th century bce , Lumbini , near Kapilavastu, Shakya republic, Kosala kingdom [now in Nepal]—died, Kusinara, Malla republic, Magadha kingdom [now Kasia, India]) was the founder of Buddhism , one of the major religions and philosophical systems of southern and eastern Asia and of the world. Buddha is one of the many epithets of a teacher who lived in northern India sometime between the 6th and the 4th century before the Common Era.

His followers, known as Buddhists, propagated the religion that is known today as Buddhism. The title buddha was used by a number of religious groups in ancient India and had a range of meanings, but it came to be associated most strongly with the tradition of Buddhism and to mean an enlightened being, one who has awakened from the sleep of ignorance and achieved freedom from suffering. According to the various traditions of Buddhism, there have been buddhas in the past and there will be buddhas in the future. Some forms of Buddhism hold that there is only one buddha for each historical age; others hold that all beings will eventually become buddhas because they possess the buddha nature ( tathagatagarbha ).

All forms of Buddhism celebrate various events in the life of the Buddha Gautama, including his birth, enlightenment, and passage into nirvana . In some countries the three events are observed on the same day, which is called Wesak in Southeast Asia . In other regions the festivals are held on different days and incorporate a variety of rituals and practices. The birth of the Buddha is celebrated in April or May, depending upon the lunar date, in these countries. In Japan, which does not use a lunar calendar , the Buddha’s birth is celebrated on April 8. The celebration there has merged with a native Shintō ceremony into the flower festival known as Hanamatsuri.

The clan name of the historical figure referred to as the Buddha (whose life is known largely through legend) was Gautama (in Sanskrit ) or Gotama (in Pali ), and his given name was Siddhartha (Sanskrit: “he who achieves his aim”) or Siddhattha (in Pali). He is frequently called Shakyamuni, “the sage of the Shakya clan.” In Buddhist texts, he is most commonly addressed as Bhagavat (often translated as “Lord”), and he refers to himself as the Tathagata , which can mean either “one who has thus come” or “one who has thus gone.” Information about his life derives largely from Buddhist texts, the earliest of which were not committed to writing until shortly before the beginning of the Common Era, several centuries after his death. The events of his life set forth in these texts cannot be regarded with confidence as historical, although his historical existence is accepted by scholars. He is said to have lived for 80 years, but there is considerable uncertainty concerning the date of his death. Traditional sources on the date of his death or, in the language of the tradition, “passage into nirvana,” range from 2420 bce to 290 bce . Scholarship in the 20th century limited this range considerably, with opinion generally divided between those who placed his death about 480 bce and those who placed it as much as a century later.

The Buddha was born in Lumbini (Rummin-dei), near Kapilavastu (Kapilbastu) on the northern edge of the Ganges River basin, an area on the periphery of the civilization of North India, in what is today southern Nepal . Scholars speculate that during the late Vedic period the peoples of the region were organized into tribal republics, ruled by a council of elders or an elected leader; the grand palaces described in the traditional accounts of the life of the Buddha are not evident among the archaeological remains. It is unclear to what extent these groups at the periphery of the social order of the Ganges basin were incorporated into the caste system, but the Buddha’s family is said to have belonged to the warrior ( Kshatriya ) caste. The central Ganges basin was organized into some 16 city-states, ruled by kings, often at war with each other.

The rise of these cities of central India, with their courts and their commerce, brought social, political, and economic changes that are often identified as key factors in the rise of Buddhism and other religious movements of the 6th and 5th centuries bce . Buddhist texts identify a variety of itinerant teachers who attracted groups of disciples . Some of these taught forms of meditation , Yoga , and asceticism and set forth philosophical views, focusing often on the nature of the person and the question of whether human actions ( karma ) have future effects. Although the Buddha would become one of these teachers, Buddhists view him as quite different from the others. His place within the tradition, therefore, cannot be understood by focusing exclusively on the events of his life and times (even to the extent that they are available). Instead, he must be viewed within the context of Buddhist theories of time and history.

According to Buddhist doctrine, the universe is the product of karma, the law of the cause and effect of actions, according to which virtuous actions create pleasure in the future and nonvirtuous actions create pain. The beings of the universe are reborn without beginning in six realms: as gods, demigods, humans, animals, ghosts, and hell beings. The actions of these beings create not only their individual experiences but the domains in which they dwell. The cycle of rebirth, called samsara (literally “wandering”), is regarded as a domain of suffering, and the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice is to escape from that suffering. The means of escape remains unknown until, over the course of millions of lifetimes, a person perfects himself, ultimately gaining the power to discover the path out of samsara and then compassionately revealing that path to the world.

A person who has set out on the long journey to discover the path to freedom from suffering, and then to teach it to others, is called a bodhisattva . A person who has discovered that path, followed it to its end, and taught it to the world is called a buddha. Buddhas are not reborn after they die but enter a state beyond suffering called nirvana (literally “passing away”). Because buddhas appear so rarely over the course of time and because only they reveal the path to liberation ( moksha ) from suffering ( dukkha ), the appearance of a buddha in the world is considered a momentous event in the history of the universe.

The story of a particular buddha begins before his birth and extends beyond his death. It encompasses the millions of lives spent on the bodhisattva path before the achievement of buddhahood and the persistence of the buddha, in the form of both his teachings and his relics, after he has passed into nirvana. The historical Buddha is regarded as neither the first nor the last buddha to appear in the world. According to some traditions he is the 7th buddha; according to another he is the 25th; according to yet another he is the 4th. The next buddha, named Maitreya , will appear after Shakyamuni’s teachings and relics have disappeared from the world. The traditional accounts of the events in the life of the Buddha must be considered from this perspective.

Accounts of the life of the Buddha appear in many forms. Perhaps the earliest are those found in the collections of sutras (Pali: sutta s), discourses traditionally attributed to the Buddha. In the sutras, the Buddha recounts individual events in his life that occurred from the time that he renounced his life as a prince until he achieved enlightenment six years later. Several accounts of his enlightenment also appear in the sutras. One Pali text, the Mahaparinibbana-sutta (“Discourse on the Final Nirvana”), describes the Buddha’s last days, his passage into nirvana, his funeral, and the distribution of his relics. Biographical accounts in the early sutras provide little detail about the Buddha’s birth and childhood, although some sutras contain a detailed account of the life of a prehistoric buddha, Vipashyin.

Another category of early Buddhist literature, the vinaya (concerned ostensibly with the rules of monastic discipline ), contains accounts of numerous incidents from the Buddha’s life but rarely in the form of a continuous narrative; biographical sections that do occur often conclude with the conversion of one of his early disciples, Shariputra . While the sutras focus on the person of the Buddha (his previous lives, his practice of austerities, his enlightenment, and his passage into nirvana), the vinaya literature tends to emphasize his career as a teacher and the conversion of his early disciples. The sutras and vinaya texts, thus, reflect concerns with both the Buddha’s life and his teachings, concerns that often are interdependent; early biographical accounts appear in doctrinal discourses, and points of doctrine and places of pilgrimage are legitimated through their connection to the life of the Buddha.

Near the beginning of the Common Era, independent accounts of the life of the Buddha were composed. They do not recount his life from birth to death, often ending with his triumphant return to his native city of Kapilavastu (Pali: Kapilavatthu), which is said to have taken place either one year or six years after his enlightenment. The partial biographies add stories that were to become well-known, such as the child prince’s meditation under a rose-apple tree and his four momentous chariot rides outside the city.

These accounts typically make frequent reference to events from the previous lives of the Buddha. Indeed, collections of stories of the Buddha’s past lives, called Jataka s, form one of the early categories of Buddhist literature . Here, an event reminds the Buddha of an event in a past life. He relates that story in order to illustrate a moral maxim, and, returning to the present, he identifies various members of his audience as the present incarnations of characters in his past-life tale, with himself as the main character.

The Jataka stories (one Pali collection contains 547 of them) have remained among the most popular forms of Buddhist literature. They are the source of some 32 stone carvings at the 2nd-century bce stupa at Bharhut in northeastern Madhya Pradesh state; 15 stupa carvings depict the last life of the Buddha. Indeed, stone carvings in India provide an important source for identifying which events in the lives of the Buddha were considered most important by the community . The Jataka stories are also well-known beyond India; in Southeast Asia, the story of Prince Vessantara (the Buddha’s penultimate reincarnation)—who demonstrates his dedication to the virtue of charity by giving away his sacred elephant, his children, and finally his wife—is as well-known as that of his last lifetime.

Lives of the Buddha that trace events from his birth to his death appeared in the 2nd century ce . One of the most famous is the Sanskrit poem Buddhacharita (“Acts of the Buddha”) by Ashvaghosa . Texts such as the Mulasarvastivada Vinaya (probably dating from the 4th or 5th century ce ) attempt to gather the many stories of the Buddha into a single chronological account. The purpose of these biographies in many cases is less to detail the unique deeds of Shakyamuni’s life than to demonstrate the ways in which the events of his life conform to a pattern that all buddhas of the past have followed. According to some, all past buddhas had left the life of the householder after observing the four sights, all had practiced austerities, all had achieved enlightenment at Bodh Gaya , all had preached in the deer park at Sarnath , and so on.

The life of the Buddha was written and rewritten in India and across the Buddhist world, elements added and subtracted as necessary. Sites that became important pilgrimage places but that had not been mentioned in previous accounts would be retrospectively sanctified by the addition of a story about the Buddha’s presence there. Regions that Buddhism entered long after his death—such as Sri Lanka , Kashmir, and Burma (now Myanmar)—added narratives of his magical visitations to accounts of his life.

No single version of the life of the Buddha would be accepted by all Buddhist traditions. For more than a century, scholars have focused on the life of the Buddha, with the earliest investigations attempting to isolate and identify historical elements amid the many legends . Because of the centuries that had passed between the actual life and the composition of what might be termed a full biography, most scholars abandoned this line of inquiry as unfruitful. Instead they began to study the processes—social, political, institutional, and doctrinal—responsible for the regional differences among the narratives of the Buddha. The various uses made of the life of the Buddha are another topic of interest. In short, the efforts of scholars have shifted from an attempt to derive authentic information about the life of the Buddha to an effort to trace stages in and the motivations for the development of his biography.

It is important to reiterate that the motivation to create a single life of the Buddha, beginning with his previous births and ending with his passage into nirvana, occurred rather late in the history of Buddhism. Instead, the biographical tradition of the Buddha developed through the synthesis of a number of earlier and independent fragments. And biographies of the Buddha have continued to be composed over the centuries and around the world. During the modern period, for example, biographies have been written that seek to demythologize the Buddha and to emphasize his role in presaging modern ethical systems, social movements, or scientific discoveries. What follows is an account of the life of the Buddha that is well-known, yet synthetic , bringing together some of the more famous events from various accounts of his life, which often describe and interpret these events differently.

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Buddhism can be defined as a conglomerate of ideas and methodologies that seek to free people from their worst tyrants, such as greed, hatred and ignorance, so that they can live their lives to the fullest.

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9 Books about the Life of the Buddha

About This Resource

Life of the Buddha Books English Language

There are only a handful of books written in English about the life of the Buddha, Prince Siddhartha, Shakyamuni Buddha. There are likely more written in Asian languages. Here we are only looking at the English language offerings, focusing on a few criteria: illustration, story accuracy, handling of sensitive subjects, and age-appropriate literacy levels. 

It’s important for parents to understand that Prince Siddhartha was an actual human being who lived, taught and died, some time during the 5th century BCE. It is not a fairy tale. The story is not drama filled and there are a few tricky parts (in some, not all renditions) that parents should be prepared to speak about—sickness and death, starvation, reincarnation. Some of these stories discuss good and evil spirits, invisible beings, heaven, demons, past lives, and then there is the fact that Buddha leaves his wife and child behind. We recommend pre-reading any book you intend to read to your child so that you can be prepared to “re-write” parts that they would either not understand or are not prepared to discuss. 

We recommend pre-reading books so that you can be prepared to “re-write” parts that children would either not understand or are not prepared to discuss. 

The story is about questioning the status quo, seeking truth, discovering the world for oneself, and ultimately relying on wisdom and kindness to benefit others. It’s also about accepting that there is suffering in the world and learning how to be okay with that. It’s about being humble and strong, selfless and dignified. It’s about not being swayed or caught in the net of external circumstances. But the fact is, there isn’t a lot of dramatic tension for authors to work with.

The crux of the story is of course that Buddha attained enlightenment. But what does that mean? The concept of enlightenment is not easy for adults to grasp, let alone children. Practitioners examine and reexamine the subject for the entire journey on the path. So we paid special attention to how Buddha’s enlightenment is described. 

For non-Buddhists reading these stories, it’s good to know that the existence of the historical Buddha is not in conflict with other belief systems, except when reincarnation is made a focal point. Because many of the families at the school don’t identify as Buddhist, at the Middle Way School teachers generally stay away from reading the Jataka tales (more on that another time), which are the fanciful tales of the Buddha’s past lives.

There are ways to get around certain material you’re not ready to address. We sometimes alter stories slightly in the moment, when there is mention of a wise man , sometimes we say wise person or wise woman . And when all the delights in the palace are mentioned, we steer away from gender specific things like “pretty dancing girls and talented men.” It’s easy to swap out some of that language to present a more balanced view.

We have included all the books we felt were worth examining. There were a few others that had inaccurate information or heavy agendas that we left off the list.

Do you have another Buddhist children’s book to recommend? Please email your short review to [email protected] so we might consider adding it to our list.  Thanks for reading!

Prince Siddhartha: The Story Of Buddha by Janet Brooke and Jonathan Landaw Wisdom Publications, 2011 (144 pages) HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

This is an illustrated long-format paperback chapter book of the journey of Prince Siddhartha and how he became the Tathagata, the Buddha, the Awakened One. The language is easily accessible and the book captured children’s imaginations during weekly storytime at Middle Way School. They liked it so much we read it again as soon as we had finished.

There are 30 chapters, which cover many of the important turning points in Buddha’s life. The authors did an excellent job selecting these points. Our students particularly liked the story of young Siddhartha and his cousin Devadatta arguing over the swan, which is featured on the front cover. They wove it into their school play. 

The full-color illustrations, nearly one for every chapter, are elementary and sweet. 

The messages of nonviolence, loving-kindness, and unselfishness come across in a non-dogmatic way and offer great jumping-off points for rich discussion. 

Our only complaint about this book, and it’s a minor one, is that the printing quality is a bit thin. It’s fine but it would be nice to have a hardcover.

There is a companion coloring book of the illustrations that we photocopied so the children could color while listening. When they were finished coloring, we attached the sheets to a long ribbon and strung them across the room so we could reference the stories from time to time.

• BE AWARE: Mentions giving birth, death, pleasure palaces, good and evil spirits, invisible beings, heaven, demons, past lives, etc. 
• ENLIGHTENMENT: Covered in two chapters starting on page 92, “The Great Battle” and “Awakened”:  “When the last speck of darkness disappeared from his mind, he was filled with a radiant clear light. He was no longer an ordinary person. He had become fully enlightened to the truth. He was now a buddha, a fully awakened one. He had reached his goal!”

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Among all the books we read, Tara di Gesu ’s magical illustrations are unparalleled. Children and adults can look again and again at each image and keep finding fascinating details. Heather Sanche’s storytelling is poetic, clear, and concise. It’s the classic tale following Prince Siddhartha’s journey of truth-seeking and discovery, including his life-altering encounters with human suffering and his realization of the Four Noble Truths. 

Most of this book focuses on his path to enlightenment, not what happened afterwards. Each of the four journeys out of the palace are given a two-page spread. He goes on to explore the Noble Truths. His teaching and death take up just a few pages at the end. We get some nice resolution of Prajapati (Buddha’s aunt and guardian after his mother’s death), and Buddha’s wife and son (Yashodara and Rahul remain nameless) join the sangha. The ending has a lovely look forward to the present day and how we have benefitted from Buddha’s teachings.

Di Gesu and Sanche, as well as Carolyn Kanjuro, who helped edit the book, are well attuned to the child reader. While all three are students of Tibetan Buddhism, they show no bias or agenda and the book stays true to the origin story that all traditions agree on. There’s a nice historical note at the end, which our children also enjoyed hearing. 

• BE AWARE: Mentions death and shows the dying Buddha, lovely ladies and strong men, thoughts and feelings looming “like demons in the sky”
• ENLIGHTENMENT: “He was not pulled by pleasant thoughts nor harmed by frightening ones. And he discovered the noble truth that the cause of suffering is being attached to feelings and experiences that come and go.” (page 34) “As the morning star rose in the eastern sky, yet another noble truth dawned in his heart. ‘There is an end to suffering,’ he realized. For he himself had gone beyond all suffering. He had become the Buddha, the Awakened One. He knew this, beyond any doubt, and did not need anyone else to tell him it was so.” (page 36)

This seminal text by Vietnamese monk, poet, and peace activist, revered around the world for his teachings on mindfulness, ethics, and peace, is recommended by many lamas, teachers, and students and is appropriate for adults and children alike. It’s long, but broken up into 2 books with a total of 81 chapters. There are summaries of each chapter in the appendix at the end as well as a map of the area where Buddha roamed, and an excellent appendix of Pali and Sanskrit terms.

An interesting aspect of this book is that the chapters are not in sequential order of the story of the Buddha’s life and there is no description of his enlightenment. He’s teaching sutras in chapter 2 and is born in chapter 6. Chapter 30 presents the Five Precepts. In this way the story flows more from the teachings and it can be read out of order. 

One Buddhist mom said she read Old Path, White Clouds cover to cover as a bedtime story to her young daughter. “It was this special place that she and I went to every night. It wasn’t action-packed but it had so much atmosphere, at least for us. It was like we went on a journey every night. It was so gentle. I remember reading every night for about half an hour.” The daughter, now all grown up, recalls this as a very special time. “Even if I don’t remember all the details from the stories, they left a lasting impression. It was the first time I was connected with the Buddha, and through the telling, I developed an affection for him as a main character. This later turned into something more. But at the time, that seed of just really liking this guy Siddhartha was important. The book became a bridge for my mom to share Buddhism with me, which I know she was happy about. That joy of reading something that was so dear to her made it stand out from other bedtime stories and I could feel that.”

The Amazon description of the book states: “ Old Path White Clouds presents the life and teachings of Gautama Buddha. Drawn directly from 24 Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese sources, and retold by Thich Nhat Hanh in his inimitable beautiful style, this book traces the Buddha’s life slowly and gently over the course of 80 years, partly through the eyes of Svasti, the buffalo boy, and partly through the eyes of the Buddha himself…”

Where’s Buddha is a wonderfully illustrated picture book for younger children with rhyming text that is accessible and very age-appropriate. It doesn’t tell the historical story of the life of the Buddha, but we include it because in a way it tells the story of the Buddha of beginningless time, the Buddha that is everywhere and has always been, from deep in the ocean to beyond the moon. Our favorite spread is the one that says “Buddha is in the hearts of all.” We wish it had gone a step further to say we all are the Buddha!

There is nothing sensitive to be aware of and no mention of enlightenment.

The Day the Buddha Woke Up was written with very young children in mind, and tells the story of the Buddha’s life and path from birth to enlightenment in clear, simple prose. A board book, its concise 18 pages are delightfully illustrated by internationally renowned artist Rima Fujita . Author Andrea Miller, the deputy editor of Lion’s Roar Magazine , has emphasized that the book is not just for Buddhist families, but rather can be a tool for non-Buddhists to learn about another religion, and it is in this spirit that she wrote this sweet introduction to the teachings of the Buddha.

There is nothing sensitive to be aware of and no mention of enlightenment. 

The illustrations and fanciful use of text make this book a fun read for kids. It’s short and can be read in one sitting. Like the popular Mo Willems books, there are two sets of text on the pages, the narrative and then the inter-illustration conversations. Calling Siddhartha “Sid” makes him perhaps a little more relatable. It also gives the authors liberty to write a story that is not really about Gautama Buddha, though there are similarities. Sid is portrayed as a disgruntled young lord, tired of being spoiled. The book does a great job of showing how tiresome being spoiled can be and how exhausting it is to try to fill every moment with external satisfactions. 

There is no mention of the four signs or the four sights (sickness, old age, death, asceticism), Sid goes straight out the door on his search for happiness. The turning point of the story has him running from a tiger and falling from a cliff. Dangling from a vine he notices a strawberry which he tastes and finds to be extra delicious, with the help of a mouse who is observing his predicament. This moment of being present seems to be a placeholder for his enlightenment, which is a little troubling. The external satisfaction of a strawberry while nearly dying seems to have made him a total renunciant. He’s learned to live in the moment. “Be Here Now,” are his final words.  

Still, it’s a fun book with truly wonderful illustrations. There is nothing sensitive to be aware of and no mention of enlightenment.

Suggested activity: We asked our students what being spoiled means and to give examples and they had wonderful answers. They loved this question. 

This is an engrossing graphic novel series. However, there is nudity and violence in these books so we weren’t able to put them out for the kids. Perhaps for older teens.

It has been adapted into two animated feature films full of drama, which signals that some liberties were taken to make the story have more tension.

From Amazon

Osamu Tezuka’s vaunted storytelling genius, consummate skill at visual expression, and warm humanity blossom fully in his eight-volume epic of Siddhartha’s life and times. Tezuka evidences his profound grasp of the subject by contextualizing the Buddha’s ideas; the emphasis is on movement, action, emotion, and conflict as the prince Siddhartha runs away from home, travels across India, and questions Hindu practices such as ascetic self-mutilation and caste oppression. Rather than recommend resignation and impassivity, Tezuka’s Buddha predicates enlightenment upon recognizing the interconnectedness of life, having compassion for the suffering, and ordering one’s life sensibly. Philosophical segments are threaded into interpersonal situations with ground-breaking visual dynamism by an artist who makes sure never to lose his readers’ attention.

Tezuka himself was a humanist rather than a Buddhist, and his magnum opus is not an attempt at propaganda. Hermann Hesse’s novel or Bertolucci’s film is comparable in this regard; in fact, Tezuka’s approach is slightly irreverent in that it incorporates something that Western commentators often eschew, namely, humor.

This book seems to be one of a series. It only covers the prophecy of Buddha’s birth, his birth Queen Mahamaya’s death, several pages devoted to the swan story, his courtship of Yashodara. This is the only book in which Prajapati Gotami is introduced, Siddhartha’s auntie who took care of him after Maya died. There are some classist ideas in the book, and women in the story are all wives or caretakers. The illustrations similarly depict men’s and women in a cartoonish, unrealistic manner, and in a style that hearkens back to old-fashioned Disney movies.

At Middle Way we choose not to retell the Jataka Tales, which are a collection of stories originally written in Ceylon in Singhalese then translated into Pali around 430 a.d. They are meant to be the Buddha’s own tales of his past lives as various animals. The stories are from a different time, very moralistic, often violent. Reincarnation is a complicated thing to explain to children. Nonetheless, this book is extraordinary to look at, with twelve stories and twelve illustrations. Each story is just one page long with a moral at the end. The morals are cryptic or heavy: “Heaven is for those whose hearts are true” and “Don’t be deceived by a donkey in a lion’s skin.” It would take quite a lot of work to make this book relatable to children. The unusual gold print on black paper is striking. The illustrations are made with very fine lines using pen and ink “sometimes a single mouse whisker.”

Related Resources

Book Review: Prajapati

Book Review: Where’s Buddha?

Book Review: The Life of the Buddha

Book Review: The Day the Buddha Woke Up

About the author.

Middle Way Education is a global, open source platform for sharing resources that support dharma education for children. Our hope is to create pathways for traditional Buddhist wisdom and knowledge to enhance modern education for the benefit of this and future generations.

Great link, thank you! “Life of the Buddha” by Bhikkhu Nanamoli is very educational, although maybe not for young kids. It has good references to suttas.

Thank you for your beautiful work!

Best wishes

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The Story of the Buddha

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Uploaded by jvu on October 14, 2011

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