"Donald S. Lopez Jr. has written the most gripping intellectual detective story I have read in years. Was the Buddha a man or a god? Europeans starting with Marco Polo could only wonder at first. His statues were everywhere, under scores of different names. But so were the statues of demons and dragons, gods and goddesses–a huge and bewildering pantheon. Was he not just another face in that crowd? He was not, but only the ancient texts could reveal this, and no European knew how to read the languages they were written in. Until, slowly, the Europeans began to learn, and little by little the stone statue began to speak, began to take on flesh, a birthplace, a life span, a history. An extraordinary story, indispensable not just for the study of Buddhism but also for a more general appreciation of the unfinished and ongoing encounter of West and East."–Jack Miles, general editor, The Norton Anthology of World Religions