Lotus Sutra

“The Buddha appeared in this world to purify all beings
by having them open the treasury of the Buddha-wisdom
which they are unaware of possessing within themselves.
The Buddhas appeared in this world to show the Buddha-wisdom
to them. The Buddhas appeared in this world to have them
understand what the Buddha-wisdom is. The Buddhas have
appeared in this world to lead them into the path of

– LOTUS SUTRA - Chapter II

The Lotus Sutra is composed of twenty-eight chapters which the faithful believe “transmit the Law” representing the culmination of the essence of the teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha. The Law is transmitted in beautiful prose and verse in terms of humorous parables, allegories, metaphors, fantastic descriptions of supernatural visions and metaphysical discussion. This panoramic totality gives it dimensions of cosmic proportions in space and time. The variegated nature of the Lotus teachings is associated with Sakyamuni’s inclination to exercise “tactfulness” and “expedience” to accommodate all manner of capacities and temperaments that exist among his listeners. Ultimately these different gateways lead to the Path.

Two broad themes reveal themselves in the Lotus Sutra. The first, developed over the first fourteen chapters, is the reality of intrinsic commonality that prevails in the nature of all human beings. Achieving Enlightenment consists of awakening the seed of Buddhahood in an individual.

The other broad theme, expounded over the remaining fourteen chapters is the eternalness of the Buddha. That the historical Sakyamuni Buddha, born and attaining enlightenment in India. was but a temporal form of the primeval Buddha who was enlightened in the remotest past and lives on eternally with no birth or death. Regardless of the age we live in the Buddha is always among us and points to the Path of Buddhahood.

The Lotus Sutra or Sutra on the White Lotus of the Sublime Dharma (Sanskrit: ???????????????????? Saddharma Pu??ar?ka S?tra; ????? Mandarin: Miàof? Liánhu? J?ng; Japanese: My?h? Renge Ky?; Korean: Myo beom nyeon hwa gyeong; Vietnamese: Di?u Pháp Liên Hoa Kinh) is one of the most popular and influential Mah?y?na sutras in East Asia and the basis on which the Nichiren sects of Buddhism were established.

History and background

The Lotus Sutra was probably compiled in the first century CE in Kashmir, during the fourth Buddhist Council of the newly founded Mah?y?na sect of Buddhism, more than 500 years after the paranibbana of Shakyamuni Buddha. Therefore, it is probably not included in the more ancient ?gamas of Mah?y?na Buddhism, nor in the Sutta Pitaka of the Theravada Buddhists, both of which represent the older Buddhist scriptures which to a greater amount of certainty can be historically linked to Shakyamuni Buddha himself.

The Lotus Sutra purports to be a discourse delivered by Shakyamuni Buddha himself toward the end of his life. The tradition in Mah?y?na states that the Lotus Sutra was written down at the time of the Buddha and stored for five hundred years in the realm of the dragons (or N?gas). After this, they were re-introduced into the human realm at the time of the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir. The tradition further claims that the teachings of the Lotus Sutra are higher than the teachings contained in the ?gamas and the Sutta Pitaka (the Sutra itself also claims this), and that humankind was unable to understand the Lotus Sutra at the time of the Buddha (500 BCE). This is the reason given for the need to store the Lotus Sutra in the realm of the dragons for 500 years, after which humankind was able to understand the Lotus Sutra.

Several years ago western scholars began examining the collection of Buddhist texts acquired by the Schoyen collectors. Several scholars have noticed fragments from the Lotus Sutra that predate the earliest Christian gospels in Greek.[citation needed] These scholars have not released much on these fragments, except to say that they are not dependent on the Chinese or Tibeten Lotus sutras. Furthermore, other scholars have noted how the cryptic Dharani passages within the Lotus sutra represent a form of the Maghdi dialect that is more similar to Pali than Sanskrit. For instance one Dharani reads in part: Buddhavilokite Dharmaparikshite. Although the ‘Vilo’ is attested to in Sanskrit, it appears first in the Buddhist Pali texts as Vilokita with the meaning of “a vigilant looker” from vi=eager like a passionless bird and lok=look.[citation needed]

[edit] Translation and Composition

The Lotus Sutra was originally translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by Dharmarak?a around 209 CE, before being superseded by a translation in seven fascicles by Kum?raj?va in 406 CE. The Chinese title is usually abbreviated to ???, which is read F?hu? J?ng in Chinese and Hokeky? in Japanese, Beophwagyeong in Korean, and Pháp Hoa Kinh” in Vietnamese. The Sanskrit copies are not widely used outside of academia. It has been translated by Burton Watson. According to Burton Watson it may have originally been composed in a Prakrit dialect and then later translated into Sanskrit to lend it greater respectability.

This sutra is well-known for its extensive instruction on the concept and usage of skillful means (Sanskrit: up?ya; Jp: h?ben), mostly in the form of parables. It is also one of the first sutras to coin the term Mah?y?na, or ‘Great Vehicle’ Buddhism. Another concept introduced by the Lotus Sutra is the idea that the Buddha is more of an eternal entity, who achieved nirvana eons ago, but willingly chose to remain in the cycle of rebirth to help teach beings the Dharma time and again. He reveals himself as the “father” of all beings and evinces the loving care of just such a father. Moreover, the sutra indicates that even after the Parinirvana (apparent physical death) of a Buddha, that Buddha continues to be real and to be capable of communicating with the world. The idea that the physical death of the / a Buddha is the termination of that Buddha is graphically refuted by the movement and meaning of this scripture, in which another Buddha, who “parinirvana-ed” long before, appears and communicates with Shakyamuni himself. In the vision of the Lotus Sutra, Buddhas are ultimately immortal. A similar doctrine of Buddhic eternity is repeatedly expounded in the tath?gatagarbha sutras, which share certain family resemblances in spirit to the teachings of the Lotus Sutra.

The Lotus Sutra also indicates (Chapter 4) that emptiness (??nyat?) is not the ultimate vision to be attained by the aspirant Bodhisattva: the obtainment of Buddhic Wisdom is indicated to be a bliss-bestowing treasure which transcends seeing all as merely empty.

In terms of literary style, the Lotus Sutra often uses astronomical numbers and measurements of time meant to convey a sense of timeless time, or to convey the inconceivable. Some of the other Buddhas mentioned in the Lotus Sutra are said to have lifetimes of dozens or hundreds of kalpas, while the number of Bodhisattvas mentioned in the “Earth Bodhisattva” chapter number in the billions, if not more. The Lotus Sutra also often alludes to a special teaching that supersedes everything else that the Buddha has taught, but the Sutra never actually says what that teaching is. This is said to be in keeping with the general Mah?y?na Buddhist view that the highest teaching cannot be expressed in words.

At least some sources consider that the Lotus Sutra has a prologue and an epilogue, these being respectively the Innumerable Meanings Sutra (???? Jp: Mury?gi Ky?) and the Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Worthy (??? Jp: Fugen Ky?).

Translations in Western languages

* Burnouf, Eugène (tr.). Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi. Paris 1852 (Imprimerie Nationale) - French translation from Sanskrit, first in Western language.
* Kat? Bunno, Tamura Yoshir?, Miyasaka K?jir? (tr.), The Threefold Lotus Sutra: The Sutra of Innumerable Meanings; The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law; The Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue. New York & T?ky? 1975 (Weatherhill & K?sei Publishing).
* Kern, H. (tr.). Saddharma Pundarîka or the Lotus of the True Law; Oxford 1884 (Clarendon Press) Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXI, New York 1963 (Dover), Delhi 1968. Translation from Sanskrit.
* Hurvitz, Leon (tr.). Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma: The Lotus Sutra. New York 1976 (Columbia University Press) Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies. Translation from the Chinese of Kum?raj?va.
* Kuo-lin Lethcoe (ed.). The Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra with the Commentary of Tripitaka Master Hsuan Hua. Translated by the Buddhist Text Translation Society. San Francisco 1977 (Buddhist Text Translation Society). Translation from the Chinese of Kum?raj?va.
* Soothill, W. E. (tr.). The Lotus of the Wonderful Law or The Lotus Gospel. Oxford 1930 (Clarendon Press). Abridged translation from the Chinese of Kum?raj?va.
* Murano Sench? (tr.). The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law Tokyo 1974 (Nichiren Shu Headquarters). Translation from the Chinese of Kum?raj?va.
* Watson, Burton (tr.). The Lotus Sutra. New York 1993 (Columbia University Press) Translations from the Asian Classics. Translation from the Chinese of Kum?raj?va.

* Tanabe, George J. & Tanabe, Willa Jane (ed.); The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture; Honolulu 1989 (University of Hawaii Press), ISBN 0-8248-1198-4 [II, 15] (Not a translation, but a collection of essays on Lotus Sutra & Japanese culture.)