translation, Dam pa’i chos pad ma dkar po zhes bya ba
theg pa chen po’i mdo,was also made in the early ninth
century by Surendrabodhi and Sna nam Ye shes sde.
Since the nineteenth century, Sanskrit manuscripts
and manuscript fragments of the Lotushave been dis-
covered in Nepal, Kashmir, Tibet, and other parts of
Central Asia. Critical comparison of these various ver-
sions has advanced scholarly understanding of the
process of the sutra’s composition. As of the beginning
of the twenty-first century, eight English translations
have been published (all but one based on Kumara-
jva’s Chinese), along with translations into other
modern languages.
Though the exact dating of individual chapters
probably varies considerably, modern textual study
suggests that the Lotus Sutramay have been compiled,
broadly speaking, in three stages. The first nine chap-
ters, which focus on the themes of the “one vehicle”
and “skillful means,” represent an initial stage. Chap-
ters ten through twenty-two, emphasizing BOD-
HISATTVAconduct and the importance of revering,
preaching, and transmitting the sutra, constitute a sec-
ond stage. This second stage corresponds, roughly, to
that portion of the sutra called the “assembly in open
space,” in which the jeweled STUPAof the Buddha
Prabhutaratna appears from beneath the earth to tes-
tify to the Lotus Sutra’s truth, and S ́akyamuni Bud-
dha, accepting Prabhutaratna’s offer of a seat beside
him in the stupa, uses his supramundane powers to
lift the entire assembly into midair on a level with the
two buddhas. The final chapters, dealing with devo-
tion to specific bodhisattvas, appear to have been
added still later. Traditionally, however, exegetes have
divided the sutra not by stages in its compilation but
by interpretation of its content. ZHIYI(538–597), de
facto founder of the TIANTAI SCHOOL, termed the first
fourteen chapters the “trace teaching” (Chinese, ji-
men;Japanese, shakumon), preached by S ́akyamuni in
a provisionally manifested form as the historical Bud-
dha, and the second fourteen chapters, the “origin
teaching” (benmen, honmon), revealing S ́akyamuni to
be the original or primordial Buddha, awakened since
the inconceivably distant past. This division of the
sutra into “trace” and “origin” sections formed the ba-
sis for numerous subsequent interpretations, espe-
cially in the Tiantai/Tendai and NICHIREN SCHOOLS.
In China, a practice began of grouping apparently
related sutras into threes. The “threefold Lotus Sutra”
consists of Kumarajva’s Sutra of the Lotus Blossom of
the Wonderful Dharma(Chinese, Miaofa lianhua jing;
Japanese, Myohorengekyo) as the main sutra; the
Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings (Wuliang yi jing,
Muryogikyo) as the introductory sutra; and the Sutra
on the Method of Contemplating Bodhisattva Saman-
tabhadra(Guan Puxian pusa xingfa jing, Kan Fugen
bosatsu gyohokyo) as the concluding sutra. No San-
skrit version is extant for either the introductory or
the concluding sutra, and the circumstances of their
compilation remain unclear. According to the first
chapter of the Lotus Sutra,just before expounding the
Lotusitself, the Buddha preached “a Mahayana sutra
called Immeasurable Meanings”; the Sutra of Immea-
surable Meaningswas assumed to be that very sutra.
It also contains the statement: “In these forty years
and more, I [S ́akyamuni] have not yet revealed the
truth.” The “truth” here was taken to mean the Lotus
Sutra,and this passage was used as a proof text to sup-
port arguments according the Lotusa supreme posi-
tion among the Buddha’s lifetime teachings. The
Samantabhadra Sutrawas clearly composed with ref-
erence to chapter twenty-eight of the Lotus Sutra,
which is also about Samantabhadra, and sets forth a
detailed meditation on this bodhisattva that includes
repentance for sins committed with the six sense fac-
ulties. Zhiyi incorporated this ritual of repentance
into the Lotussamadhi, the third of the “four kinds
of samadhi” taught in the Tiantai meditative system.Central themes of the Lotus SutraThe one vehicle and skillful means.Mahayana
polemics extol the ideal of the bodhisattva who strives
for the liberation of all, over and against the goal of
personal NIRVANAsought by the Buddha’s disciples
(s ́ravakas) and the privately enlightened (PRATYEKA-
BUDDHAs), followers of the two so-called HINAYANA
vehicles. Some Mahayana sutras, such as the
Vimalaklrtinirdes ́a,condemn the way of the two vehi-
cles as a spiritual dead end. The Lotus Sutra,however,
attempts to reconcile them with the Mahayana by as-
serting that the threefold division in the Buddha’s
teaching, into separate vehicles for s ́ravakas, pratyeka-
buddhas, and bodhisattvas, is a skillful means (UPAYA);
in reality, there is only one buddha vehicle. That is, the
Buddha taught these three separate vehicles as a ped-
agogical device, in accordance with his auditors’ vary-
ing capacity for practice and understanding, but they
are all designed to lead ultimately to the one buddha
vehicle and thus spring from a unitary intent. These
intertwined themes—the Buddha’s teaching through
skill in means and the ultimate resolution of the three
disparate vehicles in the one vehicle—are presented
discursively in chapter two and then illustrated in sub-LOTUSSUTRA(SADDHARMAPUNDARIKA-SUTRA)