The Buddhist Mahayana is a series of poems written in the first century AD that tell the legendary history of the life of the Buddha. The last four books of this version of the text were written by a Nepalese author in the 1830s in an attempt to reconstruct lost books. Buddhists and anyone interested in religious studies and comparative mythology will be delight in this hagiographic account of the life of the foundational figure of one of the world's great religions. English scholar EDWARD BYLES COWELL (1826-1903), who lived in Calcutta from 1856 to 1867, is most famous for his translations of the poetry of Hafez. German author FRIEDRICH MAX MULLER (1823-1900) combined the studies of language, culture, and religion to create the discipline of comparative mythology. Among his many works are The Sacred Books of the East, India: What Can It Teach Us?, and Wisdom of the Buddha: The Unabridged Dhammapada.