Two years later, another important Buddha film was released, The Light of Asia (Hindi title: Prem Sanyas).
Its title suggests that the script was based on the book The Light of Asia composed by the British poet Sir Edwin Arnold, which was issued by the Theosophical Society in 1891.
Director Teinosuke Kinugasa (1896–1982) directed the picture under the Japanese film company Daiei Eiga.
It is a black-and-white film consisting of beautiful images of natural environments, archeological sites, reliefs and paintings, ancient ones from Ajanta as well as modern ones accompanied by a voice over relating the history of Buddha.
This one is also the longest movie about Buddha, as it consists of five DVDs with approximately 180 minutes film each.
It is known that Buddhists in countries like Sri Lanka and Burma abhor the very idea of any human being impersonating the Buddha in a film.
[1] After its release in 1925 The Light of Asia was banned in Sri Lanka and the Malay States (contemporary West Malaysia).