Plot

This work is set in a village in China, near the Yangtze River. The first person to appear is the Poet, who describes the world he is about to create. He is followed directly by the Wizard, who speaks not only of the China he envisions, but also of the painful reality before him. The play's characters slowly congregate on the stage around a statue of Buddha.

News arrives of the defeat of the army under Chang the Younger, son of the overlord. Both the people and the leader rejoice; they dislike both Chang the Younger and his sister Mei Ling for distancing themselves from ancestral tradition and introducing western innovations. The overlord addresses the people, after which they have a mass vision of Buddha conversing with his disciples.

Chang the Younger then arrives. Incensed by what he sees of the people, he argues with his father and demands that power be handed over to him. Chang the Elder refuses to comply and curses his son. News that the water in the river is rising and has already flooded the surrounding villages provokes alarm. Chang the Younger and Mei Ling try to persuade the villagers to build dams, but they see the disaster as punishment for the estrangement from tradition, and so await assistance from the ancestors. The same view is held by the overlord, who stabs his son to death so as to appease the ancestors and the river.

Nevertheless, the disaster continues unabated. Chang the Elder helps his grandson to escape, dons his official robes and prepares to die. When Li-Liang, widow of the dead man, commits suicide, the overlord begins to have doubts as to the necessity of the sacrifice. The Wizard grants the people and the overlord one more vision of Buddha, but as soon as the illusion comes to an end, further news of greater destruction arrives.

Mei Ling reproaches her father and tries to shore up the dam, but to no avail. The people now demand that Mei Ling be sacrificed. At first the overlord disagrees, but then he sees that his grandson has not actually been removed to safety. As Mei Ling is led off to be sacrificed, the Wizard grants the final vision. The young woman's death turns out to have been for nothing, for the waters flood the village. In his final moments, the overlord grasps the terrible secret: Buddha and the river are one and the same.

Writing history

The figure of Buddha preoccupied from as early as 1921, when he was living in Vienna. At that time he wrote a 3000-line Buddha in verse, but then destroyed the manuscript. While in Berlin in 1922 he wrote a prose version which he also destroyed.

In 1930 he wrote to Prevelakis from Nice, saying that the idea for a prose work entitled A Rainy Day was taking shape in his mind. This was to end with a dream he had had about Buddha. In 1931 he wrote to Prevelakis once again, this time from Gottesgab, saying that he intended to begin work on En fumant [=Smoking], which was to be the final form for Buddha, and that he would never have it printed. According to Eleni Kazantzakis, at the same time he reworked the tragedy Buddha, though he probably never completed it.

In 1932, while in Gottesgab, he wrote a film script about Buddha. A few years later, on Aegina, he completed the first version of a tragedy entitled Yangtze, the second version of which was written in 1943. In 1949 Tea Anemoyianni sent him the manuscript of that work for revision. In 1956 Kazantzakis made a number of changes and gave it the title Buddha.

Greek editions

  • N. Kazantzakis, Theatro III. Tragodies me diafora themata. Capodistrias, Christoforos Colomvos, Sodoma ke Gomorra, Voudas, edited by E. C. Kasdaglis, Athens: Difros 1956
  • N. Kazantzakis, Theatro III. Tragodies me diafora themata. Capodistrias, Christoforos Colomvos, Sodoma ke Gomorra, Voudas, Athens: Eleni Kazantzakis 1971 - and subsequent editions; the one published in 1998, edited by Patroklos Stavrou, is a reprint of the 1956 edition

Foreign editions & translations

  • Nikos Kazantzakis, Théâtre II. Bouddha, translated into French by Jacqueline Moatti-Fine, Paris: Plon 1982
  • Nikos Kazantzakis, Buddha. Der blaue Fluß, translated into German by Dimitris Tsiambalos, Munich: Goldmann 1982. [translated into German by Dimitris Tsiambalos - Wieland Grommes:] Munich: Dianus-Trikont 1984. Goldmann 1987
  • Nikos Kazantzakis, Buddha, translated into English by Kimon Friar and Athena Dallas-Damis, with a prologue by Michael Tobias and an introduction by Peter Bien, San Diego, California: Avant Books 1983
  • Nikos Kazantzakis, Buda. Tragedia en 3 actos, translated into Spanish by Miguel Castillio Didier, Buenos Aires: Carlo Lohlé 1983, 1995
  • Nikos Kazantzakis, El yang-tsé: o la vida avasalladora y la humana liberación, translated into Spanish [Spanish] Oscar Uribe Villegas, Mexico: O. Uribe V. 1997

Performances & adaptations

  • National Theatre, Athens Festival at the Herod Atticus Theatre, 1978. Directed by Alexis Solomos, costumes and stage design by Yiorgos Anemoyiannis, music by Stefanos Vassiliaids. Cast: Alexis Minotis, Mary Aroni, Stelios Vokovic, Iakovos Psarras, Kostas Kastanas, Nikos Tzoyias and others