Lotus Sutra

Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, who appears for the first time in the Lotus Sūtra

Mahāyāna Buddhism

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Mahāyāna Sūtras

Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras Lotus Sūtra Nirvāṇa Sūtra Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra Avataṃsaka Sūtra Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Mahāyāna Schools

Mādhyamaka Yogācāra Esoteric Buddhism Pure Land • Zen Tiantai • Nichiren

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Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, traditionally the protector of the Lotus Sūtra

The Lotus Sūtra (Sanskrit: Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra) is one of the most popular and influential Mahāyāna sūtras, and the basis on which the Tiantai and Nichiren sects of Buddhism were established.

Title

The earliest known Sanskrit title for the sūtra is the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra, which translates to "Sūtra on the White Lotus of the Sublime Dharma." In English, the shortened form Lotus Sūtra is common. The Lotus Sūtra has also been highly regarded in a number of Asian countries where Mahāyāna Buddhism has been traditionally practiced. Translations of this title into the languages of some of these countries include:

• Sanskrit: सद्धर्मपुण्डरीकसूत्र Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra
• Chinese: 妙法蓮華經 miàofǎ liánhuá jīng, shortened to 法華經 fǎhuá jīng
• Japanese: 妙法蓮華経 myōhō renge kyō, shortened to 法華経 hōke kyō
• Korean: 묘법연화경 myobeop yeonhwa gyeong, shortened to 법화경 beophwa gyeong
• Tibetan: དམ་ཆོས་པད་མ་དཀར་པོའི་མདོ dam chos pad-ma dkar po'i mdo
• Vietnamese Diệu pháp liên hoa kinh, shortened to Pháp hoa kinh

History and background

The oldest parts of the text (Chapters 1-9 and 17) were probably written down between 100 BCE and 100 CE: most of the text had appeared by 200 CE.^[1]

The Lotus Sutra presents itself as a discourse delivered by the Buddha toward the end of his life. The tradition in Mahayana states that the sutra was written down at the time of the Buddha and stored for five hundred years in a realm of nāgas. After this they were reintroduced into the human realm at the time of the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir. The sutra's teachings purport to be of a higher order than those contained in the āgamas of the Sūtra Piṭaka, and that humanity had been unable to understand the sutra at the time of the Buddha, and thus the teaching had to be held back.

Translation

The Lotus Sutra was originally translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by Dharmarakṣa, aka Zhu Fahu, in 286 CE in Chang'an during the Western Jin Period (265-317 CE) (E. Zurcher The Buddhist Conquest of China, 57-69). However, the view that there is a high degree of probability that the base text for that translation was actually written in a Prakrit language has gained widespread acceptance. Jan Nattier has recently summarized this aspect of the early textual transmission of such Buddhist scriptures in China thus, bearing in mind that Dharmarakṣa's period of activity falls well within the period she defines: "Studies to date indicate that Buddhist scriptures arriving in China in the early centuries of the Common Era were composed not just in one Indian dialect but in several . . . in sum, the information available to us suggests that, barring strong evidence of another kind, we should assume that any text translated in the second or third century CE was not based on Sanskrit, but one or other of the many Prakrit vernaculars."^[2]

This early translation by Dharmarakṣa was superseded by a translation in seven fascicles by Kumārajīva in 406 CE, although it is known that Kumārajīva made extensive use of the earlier version to the extent of borrowing readings directly from Dharmarakṣa's version^{[citation needed]}. The Chinese title is usually abbreviated to 法華經, which is read Fǎ Huá Jīng in Chinese and Hokekyō 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.

Modern scholars have not released much of the sutra on early fragments, except to say that they are not dependent on the Chinese or Tibetan Lotus sutras. Furthermore, other scholars have noted how the cryptic Dharani passages within the Lotus sutra represent a form of the Magadhi dialect that is more similar to Pali than Sanskrit. For instance, one Dharani reads in part: "Buddhavilokite Dharmaparikshite". Although the vilo is attested in Sanskrit, it appears first in the Buddhist Pali texts as "vilokita" with the meaning of "a vigilant looker" from vi, denoting intensification,^[3] and lok, etymologically connoting "to look".^[4]

Content

This sutra is known for its extensive instruction on the concept and usage of skillful means – (Sanskrit: upāya, Japanese: hōben), the seventh paramita or perfection of a Bodhisattva – mostly in the form of parables. It is also one of the first sutras to use the term Mahāyāna, or "Great Vehicle", Buddhism. Another concept introduced by the Lotus Sutra is the idea that the Buddha is an eternal entity, who achieved nirvana eons ago, but willingly chose to remain in the cycle of rebirth (samsara) 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 a Buddha is the termination of that Buddha is graphically refuted by the movement and meaning of the scripture, in which another Buddha, who passed long before, appears and communicates with Shakyamuni himself. In the vision of the Lotus Sutra, Buddhas are ultimately immortal. A similar doctrine of the eternality of Buddhas is repeatedly expounded in the tathāgatagarbha sutras, which share certain family resemblances with the teachings of the Lotus Sutra.

The Lotus Sutra also indicates (in Chapter 4) that emptiness (śūnyatā) is not the ultimate vision to be attained by the aspirant Bodhisattva: the attainment of Buddha Wisdom is indicated to be a bliss-bestowing treasure that transcends seeing all as merely empty or merely labeled.

In terms of literary style, the Lotus Sutra illustrates a sense of timelessness and the inconceivable, often using large numbers and measurements of time and space. 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 states what that teaching is. This is said to be in keeping with the general Mahāyāna Buddhist view that the highest teaching cannot be expressed in words.

The ultimate teaching of the sutra, however, is implied to the reader that "full Buddhahood" is only arrived at by exposure to the truths expressed implicitly in the Lotus Sutra via its many parables and references to a heretofore less clearly imagined cosmological order. Skillful means of most enlightened Buddhas is itself the highest teaching (the "Lotus Sutra" itself), in conjunction with the sutra's stated tenets that all other teachings are subservient to, propagated by and in the service of this highest truth and teaching aimed at creating "full Buddhas" out of pratyekabuddhas, lesser buddhas and bodhisattvas. The text also implies a parent-child relationship between the innumerable Buddhas and human beings and other types of beings, with an explicit indication that all religions and paths are in some way or another part of the skillful means of this highest teaching, which reaches its fullest expression in the Lotus Sutra. The various religious institutions and their doctrinal proponents notwithstanding, all paths are then, officially speaking, part of the skillful means and plan of Buddhism, thus the sutra's former disavowal of all competitive doctrinal disputes.

Crucially, not only are there multiple Buddhas in this view, but an infinite stream of Buddhas extending through unquantifiable eons of time ("thousands of kotis of kalpas") in a ceaseless cycle of creations and conflagrations.

In the vision set out in this sutra, moreover, not only are Buddhas innumerable, but the universe encompasses realms of gods, devas, dragons and other mythological beings, requiring numerous dimensions to contain them. Buddhas are portrayed as the patient teachers of all such beings.

Some sources consider the Lotus Sutra to have a prologue and epilogue: respectively the Innumerable Meanings Sutra (無量義經 Ch: Wú Liáng Yì Jīng Jp: Muryōgi Kyō) and the Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Worthy (普賢經 Ch: Pǔ Xián Jīng Jp: Fugen Kyō).

The Lotus Sutra claims to be superior to all other sutras. Chapter ten of the Burton Watson translation states:

".. Medicine King, now I say to you, I have preached various sutras, and among those sutras the Lotus is foremost!"

Chapter fourteen states:

"Among the sutras, it holds the highest place."

Translations in Western languages

• Burnouf, Eugène (tr.). Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi : Traduit du sanskrit, accompagné d'un commentaire et de vingt et un mémoires relatifs au Bouddhisme. Paris 1852 (Imprimerie Nationale). – French translation from Sanskrit, first in Western language.
• 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.
• Soothill, W. E. (tr.). The Lotus of the Wonderful Law or The Lotus Gospel. Oxford 1930 (Clarendon Press). Abridged translation from the Chinese of Kumārajīva.
• Murano Senchū (tr.). The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law. Tokyo 1974 (Nichiren Shu Headquarters). Translation from the Chinese of Kumārajīva.
• Katō Bunno, Tamura Yoshirō, Miyasaka Kōjirō (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 & Tōkyō 1975 (Weatherhill & Kōsei Publishing).
• 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 Kumārajīva.
• 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 Kumārajīva.
• Watson, Burton (tr.). The Lotus Sutra. New York 1993 (Columbia University Press) Translations from the Asian Classics. Translation from the Chinese of Kumārajīva.
• Kubo Tsugunari, Yuyama Akira (tr.) The Lotus Sutra. Revised 2nd ed. Berkeley, Calif. : Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2007. Translation from the Chinese of Kumārajīva with input from the Central Asian Kashgar Sanskrit manuscript. ISBN 9781886439399
• Reeves, Gene (tr.) The Lotus Sutra : A Contemporary Translation of a Buddhist Classic. Boston 2008 (Wisdom Publications), ISBN 0-86171-571-3. xii + 492 pp. Translation from the Chinese of Kumārajīva. Includes also the opening and closing sutras The Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva.

See also

• Amitabha Sutra
• Eternal Buddha
• Flower Sermon
• Heart sutra
• Hokke Gisho, an annotated Japanese version of the sutra.
• Innumerable Meanings Sutra
• Mahayana sutras
• Nichiren Buddhism
• Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Worthy

Notes

1. ^ Paul Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: the doctrinal foundations. Routledge 1989, page 142.
2. ^ Nattier, Jan. A guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. 2008. p. 22
3. ^ PTS "Pali-English Dictionary" (1921-25), "vi-", accessed 23 Jan. 2011 from "U. Chicago" at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1:1281.pali .
4. ^ For a translation of the Sanskrit vi-lok and associated cognates, see Monier Williams' "Sanskrit-English Dictionary" (1899), p. 986, "vi-lok," accessed 23 Jan. 2011 from "U. Cologne" at http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/cgi-bin/monier/serveimg.pl?file=/scans/MWScan/MWScanjpg/mw0986-viluNT.jpg . For a translation of vilokita as a Pali word, see PTS "Pali-English Dictionary" (PED), "viloketi" (where vilokita is a past participle of the Pali verb, viloketi) accessed 23 Jan. 2011 from "U. Chicago" at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1:1952.pali . For the PED's definition of loka (generally referring to the seen or visible world), see http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1:824.pali . In the Pali canon, the word vilokita can be found in AN 4.103 and AN 8.10 (SLTP redaction). Upalavanna's translation of AN 4.103 (accessed 23 Jan. 2011 from "MettaNet" at http://metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/4Anguttara-Nikaya/Anguttara2/4-catukkanipata/011-valahakavaggo-e.html , sutta 3, "Kumbhasuttaṃ" ), for example, translates vilokitaṃ as "scrutinizing".

References

Nattier, Jan, A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations, Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica X, IRIABS Tokyo 2008^[1]

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]

Cole, Alan, Text as Father: Paternal Seductions in Early Mahayana Buddhist Literature (University of California Press, 2005); chapters 2 and 3 of this work present a close reading of the first four chapters of the Lotus Sutra.

External links

• The Nichiren Site
• An old translation into English by H.Kern, 1884, from the Sacred Texts Web site
• Article that comments on the Lotus Sutra, including origin and relationship with other Sutras
• "Better Than HD-TV," an article authored by a Soka Gakkai International-USA (SGI-USA) member that examines Nichiren's interpretation of the Lotus Sutra's Ceremony in the Air, also called the "Towering Assembly"
• The Art, 13 volumes of illuminated manuscripts inspired by the Lotus Sutra
• Nichiren Shu Europa Italian temple of Nichiren Shu devoted to faith, practice, study and research of the Lotus Sutra (Italian) (English) (French) (Spanish)
• R.C. Jamieson (2002). "Sanskrit Lotus Sutra Manuscripts from Cambridge University Library (Add. 1682 and Add. 1683)" (PDF). Journal of Oriental Studies 12 (6): 165–173. http://www.iop.or.jp/0212/jamieson.pdf. Retrieved 2009-09-01. 

Notes