I HAVE received one thousand blueduck coins, one to of dried rice, and other articles. The boy Virtue Victorious who offered a mud pie to the Buddha was reborn as King Ashoka, and an old woman who offered the Buddha rice gruel was reborn as a pratyekabuddha.1
The Lotus Sutra is the teacher of all the Buddhas of the ten directions and the three existences. The Buddhas of the ten directions are the Buddha Good Virtue in the east, the Buddha Sorrow-Dispelling Virtue in the southeast, the Buddha Sandalwood Virtue in the south, the Buddha Giver of Treasure in the southwest, the Buddha Infinite Brightness in the west, the Buddha Flower Virtue in the northwest, the Buddha Banner-like Virtue in the north, the Buddha Three Vehicle Practice in the northeast, the Buddha Vast Myriad Virtue of the zenith, and the Buddha Brilliant Virtue of the nadir.2
The Buddhas of the three existences are the thousand Buddhas of the past Glorious Kalpa,3 the thousand Buddhas of the present Wise Kalpa,4 and the thousand Buddhas of the future Constellation Kalpa,5 as well as all the other Buddhas depicted in the Mahayana and Hinayana, provisional and true, and exoteric and esoteric sutras, including the Flower Garland, Lotus, and Nirvana sutras. These Buddhas, as well as
the bodhisattvas in the worlds of the ten directions who are as numerous as particles of dust, all originate from the single character myo, or wonderful, of the Lotus Sutra [Myoho-renge-kyo].
Therefore, the Universal Worthy Sutra, the epilogue to the Lotus Sutra, says, “A Buddha’s three types of bodies are born from this correct and equal sutra.” The term “correct and equal” derives from an Indian word6 and was translated in China as “great vehicle.” Great vehicle, or Mahayana, is another name for the Lotus Sutra. The Agama sutras, when compared with nonBuddhist scriptures, are regarded as Mahayana sutras, or sutras of the great vehicle. Similarly, the Flower Garland, Wisdom, Mahavairochana, and other sutras, when compared with the Agama sutras, are defined as Mahayana sutras; but they in turn fall within the category of Hinayana sutras, or sutras of the lesser vehicle, when compared with the Lotus Sutra. As no sutra surpasses the Lotus, it is the one and only Mahayana sutra.
To illustrate, each ruler of the eighty- four thousand countries in the southern continent of Jambudvipa is called a great king within his country. But when compared with a wheel-turning king, he is called a minor king. In like manner, each of the kings of the six heavens of the world of desire and of the four meditation heavens may be
