Sutra

“ After the Buddha had spoken this sutra, the group of five bhikṣus did not give rise to outflows, and their minds attained liberation. After the Buddha had spoken this sutra, the bhikṣus heard what the Buddha had truly said, and blissfully practiced in accordance. ”

“ On the Arts and Sciences to be studied MAN should study the Kama Sutra and the arts and sciences subordinate thereto, in addition to the study of the arts and sciences contained in Dharma and Artha. Even young maids should study this Kama Sutra along with its arts and sciences before marriage, and after it they should continue to do so with the consent of their husbands. ”

“ Some scholars wonder why two entirely disconnected ideas are treated together in one body of the Sutra, which however shows scholarly ignorance in regard to matters spiritual, as they fail to notice the true import of Enlightenment in the system of Buddhist faith. To understand this, we need imaginative intuition directly penetrating the centre of life, and not always do mere literary and philological talents succeed in unravelling its secrets. ”

“ Each in his own land sends out a broad and long tongue completely covering three thousand great thousand-worlds, speaking these true words: ‘All you sentient beings should believe this sūtra, which all buddhas praise for its inconceivable merit and virtue, and are truly protective and mindful of.’
“Śāriputra, in the northern world realm there are Flaming Shoulders Buddha, Most Victorious Sound Buddha, Indestructible Buddha, Born of the Sun Buddha, Net of Brilliance Buddha, and thusly as many buddhas as there are sand grains in the Ganges River. ”

“ When the Lord Buddha concluded his enunciation of this Scripture,5 the venerable Subhuti, the monks,6 nuns, lay-brethren and sisters, all mortals, and the whole realm of spiritual beings, rejoiced exceedingly, and consecrated to its practice, they received it and departed.
1 Gold, silver, pearls, coral, cornelian, glass, and crystal.
2 “The wise man, the preacher, who wishes to expound this Sutra, must absolutely renounce falsehood, pride, calumny, and envy.... He is always sincere, mild, forbearing; ... he must feel affection for all beings who are striving for enlightenment ... ”

“ The sutra says: ‘If there be any one who commits evil deeds, and even completes the ten evil actions, the five deadly sins and the like; that man, being himself stupid and guilty of many crimes, deserves to fall into a miserable path of existence and suffer endless pains during many long ages. On the eve of death he may meet a good and learned teacher who, soothing and encouraging him in various ways, will preach to him the excellent Law and teach him the remembrance of Buddha, but being harassed by pains’, he will have no time to think of Buddha.’”
“What hope has such a man?” ”

“ A vast mass of Sutra literature thus gradually sprang up in India, but of the Sutras which must have been composed and taught in these numerous Sutra-charanas comparatively few have survived. The Sutra literature falls into three great classes, dealing respectively with religion (Srauta Sutras) , law (Dharma Sutras) , and domestic life (Grihya Sutras) . ”

“ Regarding the doctrines of Individuality and non-Individuality, which characterise the text of The Diamond Sutra, wherein are found to occur frequently Chinese equivalents for the ordinary concepts of an entity, a being, a living being and a personality, the following passage from The Bhagavad-Gita, suggestive almost of complete harmony with the Buddhist doctrine, may serve to make even a cursory consideration of the subject perhaps more illuminating. ”

“ He shall be the eye of the world, including gods and men, who shall speak this Sûtra after the extinction of the Chief of men.
41. He is to be venerated by all beings, the wise man who in the last times shall preach this Sûtra (were it but) a single moment.
Thereupon the Lord addressed the whole company of Bodhisattvas and the world, including gods and demons, and said: Of yore, monks, in times past I have, unwearied and without repose, sought after the Sûtra of the Lotus of the True Law, during immense, immeasurable Æons; many Æons before I have been a king, during many thousands of Æons. ”

“ According to Râmânuja the Sûtra teaches that the soul may be called vijñâna because the latter constitutes its essential quality as long as it exists.—Sûtra 31 intimates, according to Sa@nkara, that in the states of deep sleep, and so on, the soul is potentially connected with the buddhi, while in the waking state that connexion becomes actually manifest. ”

“ In the matter of historical compilation we have in general more to thank Buddhism than Brahmanism for. The simple Sûtra, or colloquies of Shâkjamuni with his disciples, written in masajja, a poetical prose pleasingly broken into a sort of cadence, themselves form a kind of history of the country contained in this sort of memoir of its great religionist. ”

“ This is but a further development of the thought of the preceding Sutra, carrying on the thought that, while the universe is spiritual, yet its material expression is ordered, consistent, ruled by law, not subject to the whims or affirmations of a single mind. Unwelcome material things may be escaped by spiritual growth, by rising to a realm above them, and not by denying their existence on their own plane. ”

“ For, as the life of the Hindu, more than that of any other nation, was, even in the Vedic age, surrounded with a network of religious forms, both in its daily course and in its more important divisions, the domestic ritual as well as the legal Sūtras are our most important sources for the study of the social conditions of ancient India. They are the oldest Indian records of all that is included under custom.
Besides these ritual and legal compendia, the Sūtra period produced several classes of works composed in this style, which, though not religious in character, had a religious origin. ”

“ Spence Hardy.
5 “Faith is in the world the best property for a man; Dhamma (the Law) , well observed, conveys happiness; truth, indeed, is the sweetest of things; and the life they call the best which is lived with understanding.”—Sutta-Nipata. Fausböll.
6 “What then, Subhuti? All the Buddhas, and all the perfect laws of the Buddhas, have sprung from (the principles of) this one Sutra; but, Subhuti, that which is spoken of as the Law of Buddha, is after all not such a Law (or, is a Law of no Buddha) .”—Kin-Kong-King. Beal. ”

“ To the general reader the Srauta Sutras are but dreary and tedious reading, and we therefore turn with pleasure to the Dharma Sutras, which present to us the customs and manners and laws of the times, and are far more valuable for our historical purpose. In the Srauta Sutras we see the Hindus as sacrificers; in the Dharma Sutras we see them as citizens. ”

“ For the introduction of the term into theology we are indebted to Herrmann, Die Religion, etc., and Kaftan, Das Wesen. See Orr’s, The Ritschlian Theology and The Evangelical Faith.
49 It may be observed in this English version of The Diamond Sutra, that the Chinese term Fuh, in deference to our Oriental friends, is invariably rendered “Lord Buddha”—a designation consonant with their concepts of devotion and piety. ”

“ The number of Ganges Rivers alone would be countless, let alone their grains of sand.” “Subhūti, I will now tell you a truth. If a good man or good woman filled such a number of three thousand great thousand-worlds with the Seven Precious Jewels in the practice of giving, would he or she obtain many merits?” Subhūti said, “Extremely many, Bhagavān.” The Buddha told Subhūti, “Just so, if good men and good women accept and maintain even a four-line gāthā from within this sūtra, speaking it to others, then the merits of this surpass the former merits. ”

“ To be possessed of intelligence, good disposition, and good manners; to be straightforward in behaviour, and to be grateful; to consider well the future before doing anything; to possess activity, to be of consistent behaviour, and to have a knowledge of the proper times and places for doing things; [141] to speak always without meanness, loud laughter, malignity, anger, avarice, dullness, or stupidity, to have a knowledge of the Kama Sutra, and to be skilled in all the arts connected with it. ”

“ Of these, the one expressly composed to propagate the teaching of the Zen school is the Laṅkāvatāra, in which the content of Enlightenment is, as far as words admit, presented from a psychological, philosophical, and a practical point of view. When this was introduced into China and thoroughly assimilated according to the Chinese methods of thinking and feeling, the main thesis of the Sutra came to be demonstrated in such a way as is now considered characteristically Zen. The truth has many avenues of approach through which it makes itself known to the human mind. ”

“ The first and the second phrases mean that the inner content of the noble understanding is beyond the reach of words and analytical reasoning, and the third phrase says that the ultimate truth is not to be found in eternalism, or nihilism, or realism, or non-realism. The Sutra sometimes goes so far as this: “O Mahāmati, it is because the Sutras are preached to all beings in accordance with their modes of thinking, and do not hit the mark as far as the true sense is concerned; words cannot re-instate the truth as it is. ”

“ In its library of over two thousand sutras, one of which, translated into Chinese, is twenty-five times as large as the whole Christian Bible, every searcher after the great verity may find materials to construct a creed according to the pattern of his own intellectual and emotional nature, and none can confidently assert that upon him alone the light of inspiration has shone, for none dare pretend to imagine that his researches have been exhaustive. ”

“ The Buddhas are invariably referred to as Fah-Wang—Princes of the Law. The Sutras are frequently alluded to as Fah-Pao—Jewels of the Law. The monks are usually designated Fah-Men—Disciples of the Law. The interminable process of transmigration is depicted by Fah-Luen—Wheel of the Law. The dissemination of Buddhistic tenets is typified by Chuan-Fah-Luen—Revolving Wheel of the Law. Religious designations consonant with the idea of Law, are held in high esteem amongst the Buddhist ecclesiastical orders. ”

“ Salutation to Dharma, Artha, and Kama.
In the beginning, the Lord of Beings created men and women, and in the form of commandments in one hundred thousand chapters laid down rules for regulating their existence with regard to Dharma, [1] Artha, [2] and Kama. [3] Some of these commandments, namely those which treated of Dharma, were separately written by Swayambhu Manu ”

“ It is like mirage, deceived by which the animals make an erroneous judgment as to presence of water where there is really none; even so, all the doctrines in the Sutras are intended to satisfy the imagination of the masses, they do not reveal the truth which is the object of the noble understanding. ”

“ It is common to suppose that men read sutras when they are old, yet really they are not read, for minds grow more and more relax with age. I may be interpreted as one who imitates persons of profound thought, but I will devote myself to the religious life. ”

“ The third book of the Sutras has fairly completed the history of the birth and growth of the spiritual man, and the enumeration of his powers; at least so far as concerns that first epoch in his immortal life, which immediately succeeds, and supersedes, the life of the natural man. ”

“ He who is acquainted with the true principles of this science pays regard to Dharma, Artha, Kama, and to his own experiences, as well as to the teachings of others, and does not act simply on the dictates of his own desire. ”

“ If one be asked to point out the system of thought towards which as a centre all the ancient and modern Indian thoughts have converged, if one wants to see the real backbone of Hinduism in all its various manifestations, the Sutras of Vyasa will unquestionably be pointed out as constituting all that. ”

“ Spiritual reading is so universally accepted and understood, that it needs no comment. The very study of Patanjali's Sutras is an exercise in spiritual reading, and a very effective one. And so with all other books of the Soul. Obedience to the Master means, that we shall make the will of the Master our will, and shall confirm in all wave to the will of the Divine, setting aside the wills of self, which are but psychic distortions of the one Divine Will. ”

“ The means [2] of producing love and sexual vigor should be learnt from the science of medicine, from the Vedas, from those who are learned in the arts of magic, and from confidential relatives. No means should be tried which are doubtful in their effects, which are likely to cause injury to the body, which involve the death of animals, and which bring us in contact with impure things. ”

“ The Sūtras form a connecting link between the Vedic and the classical periods of literature. But, although these treatises, so far as they deal with Vedic subjects, are included by the native authorities among the Vedic writings, and in point of language may, generally speaking, be considered as the latest products of the Vedic age, they have no share in the sacred title of śruti or revelation. They are of human, not of divine, origin. ”

“ The different states of the individual soul have been discussed, to the end that an insight into their imperfections may give rise to indifference towards all worldly enjoyments. Next now, in order to give rise to the desire of attaining to Brahman, the Sûtras proceed to expound how Brahman's nature is raised above all imperfections and constituted by mere blessed qualities. ”

“ A female, therefore, should learn the Kama Shastra, or at least a part of it, by studying its practice from some confidential friend. She should study alone in private the sixty-four practices that form a part of the Kama Shastra. ”