SŪTRA LITERATURE. The Sanskrit term sūtra means "a thread"; it is also used, however, to refer to a short, aphoristic sentence and, collectively, to a work consisting of such sentences. Sūtra literature, as...

Those of the Theravāda are to be found in the Tipitaka (q.v.) or three ‘baskets’ of the Pali Canon. For trans. into English see Pali Text Society. For an Analysis see A.P.C. new edn. The S. of the Māhāyana are in Sk.,...

Jap., Hokekyō. Scripture written in India probably in the second century A.D. See, The Lotus of the Wonderful Law, abridged version by Soothill from the Chinese (Oxford, 1930). Teaches the identification of the historical Buddha with the...

The ‘turning over’ of merit acquired by good deeds of an individual to the benefit of another being, or of all beings. The doctrine appears in the Theravāda but is more fully developed in the Mahāyāna. (Cp. Parināmana,...

Buddhist texts texts can be categorized in a number of ways, but the most fundamental division is that between canonical and non-canonical texts. The former, including the Sutras (Sanskrit) or Suttas (Pali), are held to be, literally or metaphorically,...

Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India. By Gregory Schopen. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997. Pp. xvii + 298. Reviewed by Dan Arnold University of Chicago For over twenty...

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