Buddhist hagiography

The Buddhavaṃsa (also known as the Chronicle of Buddhas) is a hagiographical Buddhist text which describes the life of Gautama Buddha and of the twenty-four Buddhas who preceded him and prophesied his attainment of Buddhahood. It is the fourteenth book of the Khuddaka Nikāya, which in turn is the fifth and last division of the Sutta Piṭaka. The Sutta Piṭaka is one of three piṭakas (main sections) which together constitute the Tipiṭaka, or Pāli Canon of Theravāda Buddhism.

Avadāna (Sanskrit; Pali: Apadāna) is the name given to a type of Buddhist literature correlating past lives' virtuous deeds to subsequent lives' events.

The Therīgāthā, often translated as Verses of the Elder Nuns (Pāli: therī elder (feminine) + gāthā verses), is a Buddhist collection of short poems supposedly spoken or authored by Buddhist elder nuns. The poems belong to a later period in the development of canonical Buddhist literature, composed over centuries, with some dating to the late third century BCE.

The Theragāthā (Verses of the Elder Monks) is a Buddhist text, a collection of short poems in Pali attributed to members of the early Buddhist sangha. It is classified as part of the Khuddaka Nikaya, the collection of minor books in the Sutta Pitaka. A similar text, the Therigatha, contains verses attributed to early Buddhist nuns.

The Apadāna is a collection of biographical stories found in the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Pāli Canon, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. G.P. Malalasekera describes it as 'a Buddhist Vitae Sanctorum' of Buddhist monks and nuns who lived during the lifetime of the Buddha.