Mahayana sutras

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Mahayana sutras are a very broad genre of Buddhist scriptures that began to be compiled from the first century BCE. They form the basis of the various Mahayana schools, and survive predominantly in primary translations in Chinese and Tibetan of original texts in Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. From the Chinese and Tibetan texts, secondary translations were also made into Mongolian, Korean, Japanese and Sogdian. Though there is no definitive Mahayana canon as such, the major printed or manuscript collections, published through the ages and preserved in Chinese and Tibetan, each contain parallel translations of the majority of known Mahayana sutra. The Chinese also wrote several indigenous sutras and included them into their Mahayana canon. Very little Sanskrit documents on Mahayana have survived to this day.

[edit] Historicity and Background

Mahayana Buddhists believe that the Mahayana sutras, with the possible exception of those with an explicitly Chinese provenance, are an authentic account of teachings given during the Buddha's lifetime. However, Theravada Buddhists believe them to be later inventions of monks striving to change the original teachings of Buddha, and consider the Mahayana sutras apocryphal. Generally, scholars conclude that the Mahayana scriptures were composed from the first century CE onwards, with some of them having their roots in other scriptures, composed in the first century BCE.

The Mahayana sutras were thus probably composed in the first century CE, at the time when the various overtly Mahayana-oriented groups began to appear. The Mahayana sutras are thus not included in the more ancient Agamas, nor in the Sutta Pitaka of the Theravada, both of which represent an older stratum of Buddhist scriptures, which some claim can be historically linked to Gautama Buddha himself.

[edit] Mahayana beliefs on the Mahayana Sutras

The tradition in Mahayana is that the Mahayana sutras were written down at the time of the Buddha and stored for five hundred years in the realm of the dragons (or Nagas). The tradition further claims that the teachings of the Mahayana sutras are higher than the teachings contained in the Agamas and the Sutta Pitaka, and that people were initially unable to understand the Mahayana sutras at the time of the Buddha (500 BCE). This is the reason given, according to some Mahayana accounts, for the need to store these sutras in the realm of the dragons for 500 years, until suitable recipients for these teachings arose amongst humankind.

One Mahayana tradition holds (based on the Sandhi-nirmocana Sutra) that Gautama Buddha's teachings may be divided into three general hierarchical categories, known as the "three turnings of the wheel of dharma"--the Hinayana turning, and two Mahayana turnings: the Prajna Paramita (Perfection of Wisdom), and Yogacara. The Mahayana Sutras would thus belong to the two later turnings, and not form part of the 'Hinayana' turning.