Is the Lotus sutra just a story?

vinlyn

What is the difference between a sutra and a sutta?

misecmisc1

vinlyn said:

What is the difference between a sutra and a sutta?

i guess sutta is the Pali word for the Sanskrit word sutra. this is just my guess. can somebody tell if my guess is correct or not? thanks in advance.

vinlyn

^ Well, that's what I thought. But here people seem to be writing as if they are different things.

Sile

misecmisc1 said:

@Sile: Thanks for your reply. Can you please tell a reference link, where Lotus Sutra is described? Thanks in advance.

Several versions are available online:

From Sacred-Texts: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/lotus/lot01.htm

From the Buddhist Text Translation Society: http://www.buddhistdoor.com/oldweb/resources/sutras/lotus/sources/contents.htm

An early translation by H. Kern: http://huntingtonarchive.osu.edu/resources/downloads/sutras/06lotusVimalakirti/Lotus Sutra.doc.pdf

Maybe others here who are more familiar with it can recommend a particular translation - in the meantime, there are a lot of observations on the various translations in the discussion at Dharma Wheel:

http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=428&start=0

DairyLama

vinlyn said:

^ Well, that's what I thought. But here people seem to be writing as if they are different things.

It's just a convention but IMO a useful one. Sutta generally refers to texts in the Pali Cannon, sutra generally refers to the Mahayana texts.