"An early Mahayana scripture dealing with the life of the Buddha."
"Some Mahayana scriptures speak the language of images almost entirely. There's the Lalita-vistara， for example--the
'Extended Account of Sports or Games'. Now we may be forgiven for wondering what kind of spiritual text this might be. And it may come as a surprise to learn that the sports or games are those of the Buddha， that we have here a sutra which offers us what we may say is the Buddha's playful nature. The Lalita-vistara recounts various incidents of the Buddha's career which were to him 'child's play'， incidents in which he acted freely， easily， naturally， spontaneously--in other words， in a truly spiritual manner. So this sutra is a kind of biography of the Buddha， but it is not biography as we usually understand the term， because it contains a great deal of what scholars like to call 'legendary material'. But this is not just 'legend': the Lalita-vistara speaks the language of images..."