The Lotus Sūtra is one of the most influential and venerated Buddhist Mahāyāna sūtras. It is the main scripture on which the Tiantai along with its derivative schools, the Japanese Tendai, Korean Cheontae, Vietnamese Thiên Thai and Nichiren schools of Buddhism were established. It is also influential for other East Asian Buddhist schools, such as Zen. According to the British Buddhologist Paul Williams, "For many Buddhists in East Asia since early times, the Lotus Sūtra contains the final teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha—complete and sufficient for salvation." The American Buddhologist Donald S. Lopez Jr. writes that the Lotus Sūtra "is arguably the most famous of all Buddhist texts," presenting "a radical re-vision of both the Buddhist path and of the person of the Buddha."
Sanskrit manuscript of the Lotus Sūtra in South Turkestan Brahmi script.
The Japanese title of the Lotus Sutra (daimoku) depicted in a stone inscription.
In the parable of the burning house (shown in the upper part of this Korean illustration of the sutra), a father uses three types of carts as a way to get his sons to exit a burning house. However, when they escape the fire, they all receive only one type of cart.
The Buddhas Prabhūtaratna and Shakyamuni seated side-by-side in the jeweled stupa. Bronze and gold stele, c. 518 CE, Northern Wei Dynasty. China.
Nirvana is the extinguishing of the passions, the "blowing out" or "quenching" of the activity of the grasping mind and its related unease. Nirvana is the goal of many Buddhist paths, and leads to the soteriological release from dukkha ('suffering') and rebirths in saṃsāra. Nirvana is part of the Third Truth on "cessation of dukkha" in the Four Noble Truths, and the "summum bonum of Buddhism and goal of the Eightfold Path."
Aniconic carving representing the final nirvana of a Buddha at Sanchi.
The Bhavachakra, an illustration of the cycle of rebirth, with the three poisons at the hub of the wheel.
In the cosmology of Jainism, which is a closely related sramana tradition, liberated beings abide in an actual realm (loka) or abode (sila) associated with nirvana. Some scholars have argued that early Buddhism held a similar view.
Buddhist sculpture of the final nirvana of the Buddha in greco-buddhist Gandharan style from Loriyan Tangai.