The Lotus Sutra

With its descriptions of cosmic events and characters, the Saddharmapundarika-sutra unfolds like a magnificent drama. It offers a combination of doctrine, teachings, stories, and parables, devotional practices, and portraits of the many buddhas and bodhisattvas that inhabit the world of the Lotus Sutra. This text presents a Mahayana vision.

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The Lotus Sutra (Taisho no. 262), translated by Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama from the fifth-century Chinese version by the scholar-monk Kumarajiva, is one of the most important and revered texts in East Asian Buddhism. With its vivid descriptions of cosmic events and large cast of characters, the Saddharmapundarika-sutra (Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Fine Dharma) unfolds like a magnificent drama. Its twenty-eight chapters offer a combination of doctrine, teachings, stories, and parables, devotional practices, and portraits of the many buddhas and bodhisattvas that inhabit the world of the Lotus Sutra. This text presents an emerging Mahayana vision that affirms the possibility of enlightenment for all.