Shakyamuni and the Lotus Sutra

The SGI's philosophical roots reach back to Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha who was active in India circa 500 B.C. From India, Mahayana Buddhism spread through Central Asia and China, eventually reaching Japan. Shakyamuni's ability to impart hope, courage and wisdom lay in his deep compassion for and desire to save the troubled and despairing. The impact of his teachings was felt throughout northeastern India, where they were spread verbally through his interaction with the people. From numerous scriptures available today, it can be surmised that he often expounded his teachings in response to the people's questions.

Since Shakyamuni's activities spanned five decades and covered a considerable geographical area, the people who came to embrace his teachings were diverse, and the nature of his many teachings varied accordingly, giving rise to a number of different interpretations and schools. Among the teachings that spread from Central Asia to China, and then to Japan through the Korean peninsula, none was more widely revered than the Lotus Sutra, thought to be the essential teaching he revealed in the last eight years of his life.

Shakyamuni's earliest teachings strove to awaken people to the impermanence of all phenomena in order to free them from the sufferings that arise from egoistic attachment to things that the passage of time will destroy or render meaningless. This is a point held in common by all Buddhist schools. The Lotus Sutra, however, further taught the existence of an innate and universal truth known as the Buddha nature, the manifestation of which enables one to enjoy absolute happiness and to act with boundless compassion. Rather than stressing impermanence and the consequent need to eliminate earthly desires and attachments, the Lotus Sutra asserts the ultimate reality of the Buddha nature inherent in all life. It is therefore a teaching which profoundly affirms the realities of daily life, and which naturally encourages an active engagement with others and with the whole of human society.

The Lotus Sutra is also unique among the teachings of Shakyamuni in that it makes the attainment of enlightenment a possibility open to all people - without distinction based on race, gender, social standing or education.

A fragment of the Lotus Sutra, written in Sanskrit and regarded to be the oldest document of its kind, was found in Central Asia in the 19th century.

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