Lotus Sutra

The Sutra on the White Lotus of the Sublime Dharma (in Sanskrit, Saddharmapundarika-sutra; in Chinese, Miaofa lianhua jing; in Japanese, Myoho renge kyo), commonly known as the Lotus Sutra and believed to have been composed between the first century BCE and the second century CE, is arguably the most revered and influential sutra of Mahayana Buddhism and certainly one of the most significant sacred texts in eastern Asia. Through the medium of parables and short stories, the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra present a number of core doctrines of early Mahayana Buddhism. This school first emerged in India and western Asia roughly five centuries after the death of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563–483 BCE), and would eventually come to dominate East Asian Buddhism. The Lotus Sutra’s insistence on faith in the sutra as a revealed text of extraordinary power, combined with its promise of universal buddhahood for all beings, lends it an air of sacred authority that is unusual if not unique to Buddhist scriptures.

The Lotus Sutra is a devotional text—that is, one intended to work on the level of the emotions and the senses rather than the intellect. As such, it has been employed throughout East Asian history as a focus for devotion and also as an inspiration for art, literature, and political reform. In this respect, it plays a role equivalent to the Bible in Europe or the Qur’an in the Middle East. The Lotus Sutra is often paired with two shorter texts, the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings (in Sanskrit, Amitartha-sutra; in Chinese, Wuliangyi jing; in Japanese, Muryogi kyo) and the Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Worthy (in Chinese, Puxian jing; in Japanese, Fugen kyo or Zange kyo), which serve as “prologue” and “epilogue,” respectively. Together, these form the Threefold Lotus Sutra.