Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side

An essential companion to a timeless spiritual classic The Lotus Sūtra is among the most venerated scriptures of Buddhism. Composed in India some two millennia ago, it asserts the potential for all beings to attain supreme enlightenment. Donald Lopez and Jacqueline Stone provide an essential reading companion to this inspiring yet enigmatic masterpiece, explaining how it was understood by its compilers in India and, centuries later in medieval Japan, by one of its most influential proponents. In this illuminating chapter-by-chapter guide, Lopez and Stone show how the sūtra's anonymous authors skillfully reframed the mainstream Buddhist tradition in light of a new vision of the path and the person of the Buddha himself, and examine how the sūtra's metaphors, parables, and other literary devices worked to legitimate that vision. They go on to explore how the Lotus was interpreted by the Japanese Buddhist master Nichiren (1222–1282), whose inspired reading of the book helped to