Sūtra

Sūtra (mdo)

• The scriptural transmissions of the sacred doctrine of Buddhism comprise the canonical sūtras and tantras, as well as their commentarial literature. The sūtras are the discourses of Śākyamuni Buddha which were taught publicly to his disciples: pious attendants, bodhisattvas, and laity. These discourses are considered to have been taught in the context of three successive turnings of the wheel of the sacred doctrine (Skt. dharmacakrapravartana), among which the first includes the Long Discourse (Dīrghāgama), Middle Length Discourses (Madhyamāgama), Combined Discourses (Samyuktāgama) and Minor Discourses (Kṣudrāgama), which concern the four sublime truths and the nature of selflessness, the second includes the Perfection of Discriminative Awareness (Prajñāpāramitā), the Pagoda of Precious Gems (Ratnakūṭa) and related discourses which emphasise signlessness, aspirationlessness and emptiness, and the third includes the Great Bounteousness of the Buddhas (Buddhāvataṃsaka), the Sūtra of the Nucleus of the Tathāgata (Tathāgatgarbha) and the Lion's Roar of Queen Śrīmālā (Śrīmālādevī), which emphasise the excellent analysis of buddha-attributes. Among these, the first category is the corpus of discourses revered by adherents of the Lesser Vehicle, and the last two comprise the discourses of the Greater Vehicle. Each of the major four monastic orders of the Lesser Vehicle has its own recension of first turning sūtras, among which the Sthaviravāda (or Theravāda) collection is fully extant in Pali, the Mahāsaṅghika and Sammitīya sūtras are no longer extant (although their Vinaya and Abhidharma do partially survive in Chinese and Sanskrit), and the Sarvāstivāda collection largely survives in Chinese translation. Only a small representative number of first turning sūtras were actually translated into Tibetan. As far as the sūtras of the Greater Vehicle are concerned, a few do survive in the original Sanskrit. However, the vast majority of the 740 extant sūtras in the earliest version of the Chinese Tripiṭaka belong to this category, as do almost all of the 351 extant sūtras in the Tibetan canon. GD (from the Glossary to Tibetan Elemental Divination Paintings)