Lotus Sūtra
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- Hendrik Kern
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Anonymous or composite
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~140,000 words · 648 passages
Cite this work
- APALotus Sutra. (n.d.). The Saddharma-Pundarika (Lotus of the True Law, SBE XXI) [Lotus Sūtra] (Hendrik Kern, Trans.). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/lotus-sutra/the-saddharma-pundarika-lotus-of-the-true-law-sbe-xxi
- MLALotus Sutra. The Saddharma-Pundarika (Lotus of the True Law, SBE XXI) [Lotus Sūtra]. Translated by Hendrik Kern. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/lotus-sutra/the-saddharma-pundarika-lotus-of-the-true-law-sbe-xxi.
- ChicagoLotus Sutra. The Saddharma-Pundarika (Lotus of the True Law, SBE XXI) [Lotus Sūtra]. Translated by Hendrik Kern. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/lotus-sutra/the-saddharma-pundarika-lotus-of-the-true-law-sbe-xxi.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The 'Lotus of the True Law', the most influential Mahayana Buddhist text in East Asia, in Kern's translation for the 'Sacred Books of the East'.
Context and history
Composed in Sanskrit probably between the first and third centuries, and known above all through Kumarajiva's Chinese translation of 406, which is the one that made history. The thesis that made it decisive is that of the one vehicle: the Buddha's different teachings are not rival doctrines but means fitted to the capacity of the hearer, and all lead to the same place. Hence the idea of skilful means and the famous parables — the burning house, the prodigal son — which are how the sutra explains it. On this text were founded the Tiantai school in China and the Tendai and Nichiren schools in Japan. Kern's translation is of 1884 and renders the Sanskrit, not the Chinese: it reads a different tradition from the one that shaped East Asia.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
1 It is sufficiently clear, I think, that the Buddha-fields are the heavens, and that we have in the text a description of the aspect of heaven when the stars are twinkling at dawn, shortly after or before.…