Holding Up the Mirror to Buddha-nature: Discerning the Ghee in the Lotus Sūtra

摘要

Although the origins of the Lotus Sūtra (Saddharma-punu0001ndu0001narīka-sūtra) remain obscure,ntextual evidence allows us to trace the written text back to at least the end of the secondncentury, when it was quoted by Nāgārjuna (Nhat Hanh 2003: 199). The sūtra’s message ofnuniversal Buddhahood struck a deep chord in East Asian Buddhists. At least six Chinesentranslations appeared between the third and seventh centuries, of which three are still extantn(Hurvitz 1976: ix). Tiantai 天台patriarch Zhiyi 智顗(538–597) was an especiallynenthusiastic advocate of the Lotus Sūtra, revising the Five Flavors, first mentioned in thenNirvānu0001 a Sūtra, to culminate in the Lotus Sūtra as “the ghee teaching” (Swanson 1989:n248).