Lotus Sutra
The Lotus Sūtra is one of the most popular and influential Mahayana sutras, the basis on which the Tiantai, Tendai and Nichiren schools of Buddhism were established. According to Paul Williams, "For many East Asian Buddhists since early times the Lotus Sutra contains the final teaching of the Buddha and sufficient for salvation." The earliest known Sanskrit title for the sūtra is the सद्धर्मपुण्डरीक सूत्र Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra, which translates to Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma. In English, the shortened form; the Lotus Sūtra has been 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: Chinese: 妙法蓮華經. In 1934, based on his text-critical analysis of Chinese and Sanskrit versions, Kogaku Fuse concluded that the Lotus Sūtra was composed in four main stages. According to Fuse, the verse sections of chapters 1-9 and 17 were created in the first century BCE, with the prose sections of these chapters added in the first century CE.
He estimates the date of the third stage, chapters 10, 11, 13-16, 18-20 and 27, around 100 CE. Chapters 21-26 belong to the last stage. According to Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline Stone, there is consensus about the stages of composition but not about the dating of these strata. Tamura argues that the first stage of composition, chapters 2-9, was completed around 50 CE and expanded by chapters 10-21 around 100 CE, he dates the third stage, chapters 22-27, around 150 CE. Karashima proposes another modified version of Fuse's hypothesis with the following sequence of composition: chapters 2-9 form the earliest stratum; the first layer of this stratum includes the tristubh verses of these chapters which may have been transmitted orally in a Prakrit dialect. The second layer consists of the sloka verses and the prose of chapters 2-9. Chapters 1, 10-20, 27, a part of chapter 5, missing in Kumarajiva's translation. Chapters 21-26 and the section on Devadatta in chapter 11 of the Sanskrit version. Three translations of the Lotus Sūtra into Chinese are extant: The Lotus Sūtra of the Correct Dharma, in ten volumes and twenty-seven chapters, translated by Dharmarakṣa in 286 CE.
The Lotus Sūtra of the Wonderful Dharma, in eight volumes and twenty-eight chapters, translated by Kumārajīva in 406 CE. The Supplemented Lotus Sūtra of the Wonderful Dharma, in seven volumes and twenty-seven chapters, a revised version of Kumarajiva's text, translated by Jnanagupta and Dharmagupta in 601 CE; the Lotus Sūtra was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by Dharmarakṣa in 286 CE in Chang'an during the Western Jin Period. However, the view that there is a high degree of probability that the base text for that translation was written in a Prakrit language has gained widespread acceptance, it may have been composed in a Prakrit dialect and later translated into Sanskrit to lend it greater respectability. This early translation by Dharmarakṣa was superseded by a translation in seven fascicles by Kumārajīva´s team in 406 CE. According to Jean-Noël Robert, Kumārajīva relied on the earlier version; the Sanskrit editions are not used outside of academia. In some East Asian traditions, the Lotus Sūtra has been compiled together with two other sutras which serve as a prologue and epilogue the Innumerable Meanings Sutra and the Samantabhadra Meditation Sutra.
This composite sutra is called the Threefold Lotus Sūtra or Three-Part Dharma Flower Sutra. The first French translation of the Lotus Sūtra, based on a Nepalese Sanskrit manuscript, was published by Eugène Burnouf in 1852. Hendrik Kern completed his English translation of an ancient Nepalese Sanskrit manuscript in 1884. Translations into English, French and German are based on Kumarajiva's Chinese text; each of these translations incorporate different approaches and styles that range from complex to simplified. Ch. 1, Introduction – During a gathering at Vulture Peak, Shakyamuni Buddha goes into a state of deep meditative absorption, the earth shakes in six ways, he brings forth a ray of light which illuminates thousands of buddha-fields in the east. Bodhisattva Manjusri states that the Buddha is about to expound his ultimate teaching. Ch. 2, Ways and Means – Shakyamuni explains his use of skillful means to adapt his teachings according to the capacities of his audience. He reveals that the ultimate purpose of the Buddhas is to cause sentient beings "to obtain the insight of the Buddha" and "to enter the way into the insight of the Buddha".
Ch. 3, A Parable – The Buddha teaches a parable in which a father uses the promise of various toy carts to get his children out of a burning house. Once they are outside, he gives them all one large cart to travel in instead; this symbolizes how the Buddha uses the Three Vehicles: Arhatship, Pratyekabuddhahood and Samyaksambuddhahood, as skillful means to liberate all beings – though there is only one vehicle. The Buddha promises Sariputra that h
Tibetan Buddhist canon
The Tibetan Buddhist canon is a loosely defined list of sacred texts recognized by various sects of Tibetan Buddhism. In addition to sutrayana texts from Early Buddhist and Mahayana sources, the Tibetan canon includes tantric texts; the Tibetan Canon underwent a final compilation in the 14th century by Buton Rinchen Drub. The Tibetans did not have a formally arranged Mahayana canon and so devised their own scheme which divided texts into two broad categories: Kangyur or "Translated Words or Vacana", consists of works supposed to have been said by the Buddha himself. All texts have a Sanskrit original, although in many cases the Tibetan text was translated from Chinese or other languages. Tengyur or "Translated Treatises or Shastras", is the section to which were assigned commentaries and abhidharma works; the Tengyur contains 3626 texts in 224 Volumes. The Kangyur is divided into sections on Vinaya, Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, Avatamsaka and other sutras, tantras; when the term Kangyur was first used is not known.
Collections of canonical Buddhist texts existed in the time of Trisong Detsen, the sixth king of Tibet. The exact number of texts in the Kangyur is not fixed; each editor takes responsibility for removing texts he considers spurious or adding new translations. There are about 12 available Kangyurs; these include the Derge, Narthang, Peking, Urga and Stog Palace versions, each named after the physical location of its printing. In addition, some canonical texts have been found in Tabo and Dunhuang which provide earlier exemplars to texts found in the Kangyur; the majority of extant Kangyur editions appear to stem from the so-called Old Narthang Kangyur, though the Phukdrak and Tawang editions are thought to lie outside of that textual lineage. The stemma of the Kangyur have been well researched in particular by Paul Harrison. From the seventh century onward, existing literature were compiled and catalogued from time to time which extended, classified and put in different sets of different collections.
A separate set of translation works was re-grouped into two major collections popularly known as bka’-’gyur and bstan-’gyur, translation of Buddha’s discourses and translation of commentarial works respectively. The first Tibetan catalogue was introduced during the period of the 39th Tibetan King khri-lde srong-btsen known as sad-na legs-mjing-gyon, who issued decrees “requiring all translation works that were extant in Tibetan from their Indian original to be catalogued and subjected to be recurrently reviewed and to set guidelines of terminology in order to standardize all translation works”. A team of Indian and Tibetan scholars was assigned for the purpose; as a major step in this remarkable attempt at literary standardization, the bi-lingual glossary known as the Mahavyutpatti was accomplished in the Tibetan horse year. Another great achievement was the cataloguing of the collections available in royal libraries of the three famous Tibetan palaces under the supervision of the famous translator Bande sKa-ba dpal-brtsegs with help from his colleagues, Bande chos-kyi snying-po, Lo-tsa-wa Bande debendhara, Bande lhun-po and Bande klu’-dbang-po etc.
The earliest catalogue compilation was recorded from the manuscript of the royal collection housed in the palace- pho-brang ‘phang-thang ka-med kyi gtsug-lag-kang in the Tibetan dog year. This cataloguing work known as dkar-chag phang-thang-ma. Soon afterwards two further catalogues of collections available in two other royal libraries- pho-brang bsam-yas mchims-phu-ma and pho-brang stong-thang ldan-dkar were compiled and came to be known as dkar-chag mchims-phu-ma and dkar-chag ldan-dkar-ma respectively. Dkar-chag ldan-dkar-ma was compiled in the dragon year. Among these three catalogues, ldan-dkar-ma, included in the volume Jo of sna-tsogs in sde-ge bka’-bstan, is believed to be the only surviving so far, but a manuscript of dkar-chag phang-thang-ma is discovered and published from Tibet. It contains 961 titles listed under 34 subject headings with additional information of numbers of verses that contains in each text; the ldan-dkar-ma catalogue listed under a category of 27 subject headings.
An interesting unique feature of Tibetan catalogue is that, alongside information about the source material of translation and the bibliographical details, it gives in physical descriptions, such as the nos. of words, verses and folios-pages in each of textual contents. Thus today we have a record of 73 million words contained in the bka’-’gyur & bstan-’gyur collection. According to the latest edition of Dharma Publication, the bKa’-‘gyur contains 1,115 texts, spread over 65,420 Tibetan folios amounting to 450,000 lines or 25 million words; the bsTan-'gyur contains 3,387 texts using 127,000 folios amounting to 850,000 lines and 48 millions words. The sum total of both these collections is 4,502 texts in 73 millions words. By fixing bampo to verses and to words of each of the textual contents, the individual works are interpolation and alteration; this further strengthened the authenticity of Tibetan Buddhist literature. These are the first Tibetan catalogues in three versions that were compiled and published in the beginning of the ninth century by the great sgra-sgyur gyi lo-tsa-wa Bande sKa-ba dpal-brtsegs and his team.
Tibet, becomes the earliest to accomplish catalogue as inventory i
Buddhism in Mongolia
Buddhism in Mongolia derives much of its recent characteristics from Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelug and Kagyu lineages, but is distinct and presents its own unique characteristics. Buddhism in Mongolia began with the Yuan dynasty emperors' conversion to Tibetan Buddhism; the Mongols returned to shamanic traditions after the collapse of the Mongol Empire, but Buddhism reemerged in the 16th and 17th centuries. Buddhism in Mongolia derives many of its recent characteristics from Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelug and Kagyu lineages, but is distinct and presents its own unique characteristics. Traditionally, the Mongolian ethnic religions involved worship of Heaven and ancestors and the ancient North Asian practices of shamanism, in which human intermediaries went into trance and spoke to and for some of the numberless infinities of spirits responsible for human luck or misfortune; the earliest introduction of Buddhism into the Mongolian steppes took place during the periods of the nomadic empires. Buddhism penetrated Mongolia from Nepal via Central Asia.
Many Buddhist terms of Sanskrit origin were adopted via the Sogdian language. The rulers of the nomadic empires such as the Xiongnu, Rouran Khaganate and the Göktürks received missionaries and built temples for them. Buddhism prevailed among aristocrats and was patronised by the monarchs of the Northern Wei established by the Xianbei and of the Liao dynasty established by the Khitan people; the Khitan aristocracy regarded Buddhism as the culture of the Uyghur Khaganate that dominated the Mongolian steppes before the rise of the Khitans. The monarchs of the Jin established by the Jurchen people regarded Buddhism as part of their Khitan; the oldest known Mongolian language translations of Buddhist literature were translated from the Uyghur language and contain Turkic language words like sümbür tay, ayaγ-wa, quvaray and many proper names and titles like buyuruγ and külüg of 12th-century Turkic origin. Genghis Khan and his immediate successors conquered nearly all of Asia and European Russia and sent armies as far as central Europe and Southeast Asia.
The emperors of the Yuan dynasty in the 13th and 14th century converted to Tibetan Buddhism. Kublai Khan invited lama Drogön Chögyal Phagpa of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism to spread Buddhism throughout his realm. Buddhism became the de facto state religion of the Mongol Yuan state. In 1269, Kublai Khan commissioned Phagpa lama to design a new writing system to unify the writing systems of the multilingual empire. The'Phags-pa script known as the "Square script", was based on the Tibetan script and written vertically from top was designed to write in Mongolian, Chinese and Sanskrit languages and served as the official script of the empire. Tibetan Buddhist monasticism made an important impact on the early development of Mongolian Buddhism. Buddhist monkhood played significant political roles in Central and Southeast Asia, the sangha in Mongolia was no exception. Mongols assisted Tibetans in unifying the country; the activities of the Mongols were conducive to the prominency of the Sakya school and the Gelug, to the further development of Tibeto-Mongolian civilisation.
The Mongols returned to shamanic traditions after the collapse of the Mongol Empire. Hutuhtai Secen Hongtaiji of Ordos and his two brothers invaded Tibet in 1566, he sent an ultimatum to some of the ruling clergy of Tibet demanding their submission. The Tibetan supreme monks decided to surrender and Hutuhtai Secen Hongtaiji returned to Ordos with three high ranking monks. Tumen Jasaghtu Khan invited a monk of the Kagyu school in 1576. In 1578 Altan Khan, a Mongol military leader with ambitions to unite the Mongols and to emulate the career of Genghis Khan, invited the 3rd Dalai Lama, the head of the rising Gelug lineage to a summit, they formed an alliance that gave Altan Khan legitimacy and religious sanction for his imperial pretensions and that provided the Buddhist school with protection and patronage. Altan Khan recognized Sonam Gyatso lama as a reincarnation of Phagpa lama, gave the Tibetan leader the title of Dalai Lama, which his successors still hold. Sonam Gyatso, in turn, recognized Altan as a reincarnation of Kublai Khan.
Thus, Altan added legitimacy to the title "khan" that he had assumed, while Sonam Gyatso received support for the supremacy he sought over the Tibetan sangha. Since this meeting, the heads of the Gelugpa school became known as Dalai Lamas. Altan Khan bestowed the title Ochirdara to Sonam Gyatso. Altan Khan died soon after, but in the next century the Gelug spread throughout Mongolia, aided in part by the efforts of contending Mongol aristocrats to win religious sanction and mass support for their unsuccessful efforts to unite all Mongols in a single state. Viharas were built across Mongolia sited at the juncture of trade and migration routes or at summer pastures where large numbers of herders would congregate for shamanistic rituals and sacrifices. Buddhist monks carried out a protracted struggle with the indigenous shamans and succeeded, to some extent, in taking over their functions and fees as healers and diviners, in pushing the shamans to the fringes of Mongolian culture and religion.
Church and state supported each other, the doctrine of reincarnation made it possible for the reincarnations of living Buddhas to be discovered conveniently in the families o
Trikaya
The Trikāya doctrine is a Mahayana Buddhist teaching on both the nature of reality and the nature of Buddhahood. The doctrine says that a Buddha has three kāyas or bodies: The Dharmakāya, Buddha nature and order, or Truth body which embodies the principle of enlightenment and knows no limits or boundaries. Before the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, the term Dhammakāya was current. Dhammakāya means Truth body. In the Pāli Canon, Gautama Buddha tells Vasettha that the Tathāgata is the Dhammakāya, the'Truth-body' or the'Embodiment of Truth', as well as Dhammabhūta,'Truth-become','One who has become Truth' The Buddha is equated with the Dhamma: "he Buddha comforts him,'Enough, Vakkali. Why do you want to see this filthy body? Whoever sees; because the titles of the Tathagatha are: The Body of Dhamma, The Body of Brahma, the Manifestation of Dhamma, the Manifestation of Brahma. The Dharmakāya doctrine was first expounded in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā "The Perfection of Wisdom In Eight Thousand Verses", composed in the 1st century BCE.
Mahayana Buddhism introduced the Sambhogakāya, which conceptually fits between the Nirmāṇakāya and the Dharmakaya. The Sambhogakaya is that aspect of the Buddha, or the Dharma, that one meets in visions and in deep meditation, it could be considered an interface with the Dharmakaya. The Trikaya-doctrine and the Buddha-nature bring the transcendental within reach, by placing the transcendental within the plane of immanence. Around 300 CE, the Yogacara school systematized the prevalent ideas on the nature of the Buddha in the Trikaya or three-body doctrine. Schools have different ideas about; the Three Bodies of the Buddha from the point of view of Pure Land Buddhist thought can be broken down like so: The Nirmaṇakāya is a physical/manifest body of a Buddha. An example would be Gautama Buddha's body; the Sambhogakāya is the reward/enjoyment body, whereby a bodhisattva completes his vows and becomes a Buddha. Amitābha and Manjushri are examples of Buddhas with the Sambhogakaya body; the Dharmakāya is the embodiment of the truth itself, it is seen as transcending the forms of physical and spiritual bodies.
Vairocana Buddha is depicted as the Dharmakāya in esoteric Buddhist schools such as Shingon Buddhism and Kegon in Japan. As with earlier Buddhist thought, all three forms of the Buddha teach the same Dharma, but take on different forms to expound the truth. According to Schloegl, in the Zhenzhou Linji Huizhao Chansi Yulu, the Three Bodies of the Buddha are not taken as absolute, they would be "mental configurations" that "are names or props" and would only perform a role of light and shadow of the mind. The Zhenzhou Linji Huizhao Chansi Yulu advises: Do you wish to be not different from the Buddhas and patriarchs? Just do not look for anything outside; the pure light of your own heart at this instant is the Dharmakaya Buddha in your own house. The non-differentiating light of your heart at this instant is the Sambhogakaya Buddha in your own house; the non-discriminating light of your own heart at this instant is the Nirmanakaya Buddha in your own house. This trinity of the Buddha's body is none other than he here before your eyes, listening to my expounding the Dharma.
Vajrayana sometimes refers to a fourth body called the svābhāvikakāya "essential body", to a fifth body, called the mahāsūkhakāya. The svābhāvikakāya is the unity or non-separateness of the three kayas; the term is known in Gelug teachings, where it is one of the assumed two aspects of the dharmakāya: svābhāvikakāya "essence body" and jñānakāya "body of wisdom". Haribhadra claims that the Abhisamayalankara describes Buddhahood through four kāyas in chapter 8: svābhāvikakāya, dharmakāya, sambhogakāya and nirmāṇakāya. In dzogchen teachings, "dharmakaya" means the buddha-nature's absence of self-nature, that is, its emptiness of a conceptualizable essence, its cognizance or clarity is the sambhogakaya, the fact that its capacity is'suffused with self-existing awareness' is the nirmanakaya; the interpretation in Mahamudra is similar: When the mahamudra practices come to fruition, one sees that the mind and all phenomena are fundamentally empty of any identity. One perceives that the essence of mind is empty, but that it has a potentiality that takes the form of luminosity.
In Mahamudra thought, Sambhogakāya is understood to be this luminosity. Nirmanakāya is understood to be the powerful force with which the potentiality affects living beings. In the view of Anuyoga, the Mind Stream is the ` continuity'; the Trikāya, as a triune, is symbolised by the Gankyil. A ḍākinī is a tantric deity described as a female embodiment of enlightened energy; the Sanskrit term is likely
Bhutan
Bhutan the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia. Located in the Eastern Himalayas, it is bordered by Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north, the Sikkim state of India and the Chumbi Valley of Tibet in the west, the Arunachal Pradesh state of India in the east, the states of Assam and West Bengal in the south. Bhutan is geopolitically in East Asia and is the region's second least populous nation after the Maldives. Thimphu is largest city, while Phuntsholing is its financial center; the independence of Bhutan has endured for centuries and it has never been colonized in its history. Situated on the ancient Silk Road between Tibet, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, the Bhutanese state developed a distinct national identity based on Buddhism. Headed by a spiritual leader known as the Zhabdrung Rinpoche, the territory was composed of many fiefdoms and governed as a Buddhist theocracy. Following a civil war in the 19th century, the House of Wangchuck reunited the country and established relations with the British Empire.
Bhutan fostered a strategic partnership with India during the rise of Chinese communism and has a disputed border with China. In 2008, Bhutan transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy and held the first election to the National Assembly of Bhutan; the National Assembly of Bhutan is part of the bicameral parliament of the Bhutanese democracy. The country's landscape ranges from lush subtropical plains in the south to the sub-alpine Himalayan mountains in the north, where there are peaks in excess of 7,000 metres. Gangkhar Puensum is the highest peak in Bhutan, it may be the highest unclimbed mountain in the world; the wildlife of Bhutan is notable for its diversity. In South Asia, Bhutan ranks first in economic freedom, ease of doing business, peace. However, Bhutan continues to be a least developed country. Hydroelectricity accounts for the major share of its exports; the government is a parliamentary democracy. Bhutan maintains diplomatic relations with 52 countries and the European Union, but does not have formal ties with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
It is a member of SAARC, BIMSTEC and the Non-Aligned Movement. The Royal Bhutan Army maintains a close relationship with the Indian Armed Forces. Bhutan is notable for pioneering the concept of gross national happiness; the precise etymology of "Bhutan" is unknown, although it is to derive from the Tibetan endonym "Bod" used for Tibet. Traditionally, it is taken to be a transcription of the Sanskrit Bhoṭa-anta "end of Tibet", a reference to Bhutan's position as the southern extremity of the Tibetan plateau and culture. Since the 17th century the official name of Bhutan has been Druk yul and Bhutan only appears in English-language official correspondence. Names similar to Bhutan — including Bohtan, Bottanthis and Bottanter — began to appear in Europe around the 1580s. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier's 1676 Six Voyages is the first to record the name Boutan. However, in every case, these seem to have been describing not modern Bhutan but the Kingdom of Tibet; the modern distinction between the two did not begin until well into the Scottish explorer George Bogle's 1774 expedition — realizing the differences between the two regions and states, his final report to the East India Company formally proposed labelling the Druk Desi's kingdom as "Boutan" and the Panchen Lama's as "Tibet".
The EIC's surveyor general James Rennell first anglicized the French name as Bootan and popularized the distinction between it and greater Tibet. Locally, Bhutan has been known by many names. One of the earliest Western records of Bhutan, the 1627 Relação of the Portuguese Jesuits Estêvão Cacella and João Cabral, records its name variously as Cambirasi and Mon; the first time a separate Kingdom of Bhutan appeared on a western map, it did so under its local name as "Broukpa". Others including Lho Mon, Lho Tsendenjong, Lhomen Khazhi and Lho Menjong. Stone tools, weapons and remnants of large stone structures provide evidence that Bhutan was inhabited as early as 2000 BC, although there are no existing records from that time. Historians have theorized that the state of Lhomon, or Monyul may have existed between 500 BC and AD 600; the names Lhomon Tsendenjong, Lhomon Khashi, or Southern Mon, have been found in ancient Bhutanese and Tibetan chronicles. Buddhism was first introduced to Bhutan in the 7th century AD.
Tibetan king Songtsän Gampo, a convert to Buddhism, who had extended the Tibetan Empire into Sikkim and Bhutan, ordered the construction of two Buddhist temples, at Bumthang in central Bhutan and at Kyichu in the Paro Valley. Buddhism was propagated in earnest in 746 under King Sindhu Rāja, an exiled Indian king who had established a government in Bumthang at Chakhar Gutho Palace. Much of early Bhutanese history is unclear because most of the records were destroyed when fire ravaged the ancient capital, Punakha, in 1827. By the 10th century, Bhutan's political development was influenced by its
Vimalakirti Sutra
The Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa, or is a Mahayana Buddhist sutra. It was influential in East Asia, but most of less importance in the Indian and Tibetan sub-traditions of Mahāyāna Buddhism; the word nirdeśa in the title means "instruction, advice", Vimalakīrti is the name of the main protagonist of the text, means "Taintless Fame". The sutra teaches, among other subjects, the meaning of nondualism, the doctrine of the true body of the Buddha, the characteristically Mahāyāna claim that the appearances of the world are mere illusions, the superiority of the Mahāyāna over other paths, it places in the mouth of the upāsaka Vimalakīrti a teaching addressed to both arhats and bodhisattvas, regarding the doctrine of śūnyatā. In most versions, the discourse of the text culminates with a wordless teaching of silence. Translator Burton Watson argues that the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa was composed in 100 CE. Although it had been thought lost for centuries, a version in Sanskrit was recovered in 1999 among the manuscripts of the Potala Palace in Lhasa.
The Sanskrit was published in parallel with the Tibetan and three Chinese versions by the Study Group on Buddhist Sanskrit Literature at the Institute for Comprehensive Studies of Buddhism at Taisho University in 2004, in 2006, the same group published a critical edition that has become the standard version of the Sanskrit for scholarly purposes. In 2007 the Nagarjuna Institute of Exact Methods published a romanized Sanskrit version under the title Āryavimalakīrtinirdeśo Nāma Mahāyānasūtram. For a recent and thorough summary of the present scholarly understanding of the text, readers should consult Felbur. Various translations circulate, an greater number are known or claimed to have existed in the past. Tradition holds. A supposed first translation is said in some classical bibliographic sources, beginning with the notoriously unreliable Lidai sanbao ji 歷代三寶紀 T2034 in 598 C. E. to have been produced by Yan Fotiao 嚴佛調. Three canonical Chinese versions are extant: an earlier version ascribed to Zhi Qian 支謙, entitled Weimojie jing 維摩詰經 T474.
E. under the title Weimojie suoshuo jing 維摩詰所說經 T475. Of these, the Kumārajīva version is the most famous; the principal Tibetan version is that found in the Kanjur, by Chos nyid tshul khrims, Dri ma med par grags pas bstan pa D176/Q843.' An additional version was found at Dunhuang in the early 20th century. In modern English, four main translations exist, two Kumārajīva's Chinese, two others from the Tibetan. A erudite French translation by Étienne Lamotte was made from the Tibetan. Lamotte's French was re-translated into English by Sara Boin-Webb, bringing the total number of English versions to five; the English translations are: Charles. Ordinary Enlightenment: A Translation of the Vimalakirti Nirdesa. Shambhala Publications. ISBN 0394730658. Lamotte, Etienne; the Teaching of Vimalakirti: Vimalakirtinirdesa. Pali Text Society. ISBN 0860130770. - Translation from French Watson, Burton. The Vimalakirti Sutra. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231106564. Thurman, Robert; the Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti: A Mahayana Scripture.
Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0271012099. McRae, John; the Sutra of Queen Śrīmālā of the Lion's the Vimalakīrti Sutra. Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research. ISBN 1886439311. Archived from the original on September 12, 2014. Jan Nattier has discussed and compared most of these translations in considerable detail, as an interesting case in the agendas and resulting shortcomings of various approaches to modern Buddhist Studies. No English translation directly from the rediscovered Sanskrit has yet been published. There exist or existed various translations into the Japanese, Khotanese, Mongolian and Manchurian languages. Most Japanese versions are based on Kumārajīva, but two translations directly from the rediscovered Sanskrit text into vernacular Japanese have now been published, one by Takahashi Hisao 高橋尚夫 and Nishino Midori 西野翠, one by Ueki Masatoshi 植木雅俊; the Vimalakirti Sutra can be summarised. Chapter 1 The scene is Āmrapāli's garden outside Vaiśālī. In this setting, we may see evidence of the literary sophistication of the authors, the foreshadowing of key themes: Āmrapāli was a famously accomplished courtesan, ascribed in narrative with various roles in relation to promulgation of the Dharma.
Five hundred Licchavi youths offer parasols to the Buddha, who miraculously transforms them into a single gigantic parasol that covers the entire cosmos. The youths ask; the Buddha responds. The buddhakṣetra is equated with various other exalted
This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies website http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/.
