Prehistoric Asia

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Map of Asia

 

  North Asia/Eurasia

  Central Asia

  East Asia

  Near East/Middle East

  South Asia

  Southeast Asia

Prehistoric Asia refers to events in Asia during the period of human existence prior to the invention of writing systems or the documentation of recorded history. This includes portions of the Eurasian land mass currently or traditionally considered as the continent of Asia. The continent is commonly described as the region east of the Ural Mountains, the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea and Black Sea, bounded by the Pacific, Indian, and Arctic Oceans. This article gives an overview of the many regions of Asia during prehistoric times.

Origin of Asian hominids

This skull of Homo erectus georgicus from Dmanisi in modern Georgia (Caucasus) is the earliest evidence for the presence of early humans outside the African continent.

 

Illustration of what Peking Man may have looked like.

Early hominids

About 1.8 million years ago, some hominids left the African continent. Homo erectus ("upright man") is believed to have lived in East and Southeast Asia from 1.8 million to 40,000 years ago. Their regional distinction is classified as Homo erectus sensu stricto. The females weighed an average of 52 kilograms (115 lb) and were on average 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) tall. The males weighed an average of 58 kilograms (128 lb) and were on average 1.7 metres (5.6 ft) tall. They are believed to have had a vegetarian diet with some meat. They had small brains, when compared to the later Homo sapiens and used simple tools.

The earliest human fossils found outside of Africa are skulls and mandibles of the Asian Homo erectus from Dmanisi (modern Republic of Georgia) in Caucasus, which is a land corridor that led to North Asia from Africa and Near East or Middle East. They are approximately 1.8 Ma (Megaannum, or million years) old. Archaeologists have named these fossils Homo erectus georgicus. There were also some remains that looked similar to the Homo ergaster, which may mean that there were several species living about that time in Caucasus. Bones of animals found near the human remains included short-necked giraffes, ostriches, ancient rhinoceroses from Africa and saber-toothed tigers and wolves from Eurasia. Tools found with the human fossils include simple stone tools like those used in Africa: a cutting flake, core and a chopper.

The oldest Southeast Asian Homo fossils, known as the Homo erectus Java Man, were found between layers of volcanic debris in Java, Indonesia. Fossils representing 40 Homo erectus individuals, known as Peking Man, were found near Beijing at Zhoukoudian that date to about 400,000 years ago. The species was believed to have lived for at least several hundred thousand years in China, and possibly until 200,000 years ago in Indonesia. They may have been the first to use fire and cook food.

Skulls were found in Java of Homo erectus that dated to about 300,000 years ago. A skull was found in Central China that was similar to the Homo heidelbergensis remains that were found in Europe and Africa and are dated between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago.

Homo sapiens

Between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago, Homo sapiens came to Southeast Asia by migrating from Africa, known as the "Out of Africa" model. Homo sapiens are believed to have migrated through the Middle East on their way out of Africa about 100,000 years ago. Near Nazareth, remains of skeletons, including a double grave of a mother and child, dating to about 93,000 years ago were found in a Jebel Qafzeh cave. Included among the remains was a skeleton of another species which was not Homo sapiens; it had a "distinct and undivided browridge that is continuous across the eye sockets" and other discrepancies.

Researchers believe that the modern human, or Homo sapiens, migrated about 60,000 years ago to South Asia along the Indian Ocean, because people living in the most isolated areas of the Indian Ocean have the oldest non-African DNA markers. Humans migrated into inland Asia, likely by following herds of bison and mammoth and arrived in southern Siberia by about 43,000 years ago and some people move south or east from there. By about 40,000 years ago Homo sapiens made it to Indonesia, where a skull was found on Borneo in Niah Cave.

Homo sapiens migration map, based upon DNA markers
 

Homo sapiens females weighed an average of 54 kilograms (119 lb) and were on average 1.6 metres (5.2 ft) tall. The males weighed an average of 65 kilograms (143 lb) and were on average 1.7 metres (5.6 ft) tall. They were omnivorous. As compared to earlier hominids, Homo sapiens had larger brains and used more complex tools, including, blades, awls, and microliths out of antlers, bones and ivory. They were the only hominids to develop language, make clothes, create shelters, and store food underground for preservation. In addition, language was formed, rituals were created and art was made.

Written language

Date	Writing system	Attestation	Location	Region
c. 2600–2500 BC	Sumerian	Cuneiform texts from Shuruppak and Abu Salabikh (Fara period)	Mesopotamia	Near East
c. 2400 BC	Akkadian	A few dozen pre-Sargonic texts from Mari and other sites in northern Babylonia	Syria	Near East
c. 2400 BC	Eblaite	Ebla tablets	Syria	Near East
c. 2300 BC[18]	Elamite	Awan dynasty peace treaty with Naram-Sin	Iran / Iraq	Near East
21st century BC	Hurrian	Temple inscription of Tish-atal in Urkesh	Mesopotamia	Near East
c. 1650 BC	Hittite	Various cuneiform texts and Palace Chronicles written during the reign of Hattusili I, from the archives at Hattusa	Turkey	Near East
c. 1300 BC	Ugaritic	Tablets from Ugarit	Syria	Near East
c. 1200 BC	Old Chinese	Oracle bone and bronze inscriptions from the reign of Wu Ding[21][22][23]	China	East Asia
c. 1000 BC	Phoenician	Ahiram epitaph	Canaan	Near East
10th century BC	Aramaic			Near East
10th century BC	Hebrew	Gezer calendar	Canaan	Near East
c. 850 BC	Ammonite	Amman Citadel Inscription	Jordan	Near East
c. 840 BC	Moabite	Mesha Stele	Jordan	Near East
c. 800 BC	Phrygian		Asia Minor	Near East
c. 800 BC	Old North Arabian		Northern Arabian Peninsula	Near East
c. 800 BC	Old South Arabian		Southern Arabian Peninsula	Near East
c. 600 BC	Lydian		Anatolia	Near East
c. 600 BC	Carian		Anatolia	Near East
c. 500 BC	Old Persian	Behistun inscription	Iran	Near East
c. 500-300 BC	Tamil Brahmi	cave inscriptions and potsherds in Tamil Nadu	Sri Lanka / India	South Asia
c. 260 BC	Middle Indo-Aryan (Prakrit)	Edicts of Ashoka (Pottery inscriptions from Anuradhapura have been dated c. 400 BC.)	India	South Asia
c. 170–130 BC	Pahlavi		Iran	Near East

Prehistory by region

North Asia

Above China is North Asia or Eurasia, in which Siberia, and Russian Far East are extensive geographical regions which has been part of Russia since the seventeenth century. 

At the southwestern edge of North Asia is Caucasus. It is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas. Caucasus is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europe's highest mountain, Mount Elbrus. The southern part of the Caucasus consists of independent sovereign states, whereas the northern parts are under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. 

The Armenian Highland, in Prehistoric Armenia, shows traces of settlement from the Neolithic era. The Shulaveri-Shomu culture of the central Transcaucasus region is one of the earliest known prehistoric culture in the area, carbon-dated to roughly 6000–4000 BC. Another early culture in the area is the Kura-Araxes culture, assigned to the period of ca. 3300–2000 BC, succeeded by the Georgian Trialeti culture (ca. 3000–1500 BC). 

The prehistory of Georgia is the period between the first human habitation of the territory of modern-day nation of Georgia and the time when Assyrian and Urartian, and more firmly, the Classical accounts, brought the proto-Georgian tribes into the scope of recorded history.

Central Asia

Main article: Prehistory of Central Asia

Central Asia is the core region of the Asian continent and stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also sometimes referred to as Middle Asia, and, colloquially, "the 'stans" (as the six countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix "-stan", meaning "land of") and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent. The countries are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan.

East Asia

East Asia, for the purpose of this discussion, includes the prehistoric regions of China, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Korea. Study of Prehistoric China includes its paleolithic sites, neolithic cultures, Chalcolithic cultures, the Chinese Bronze Age, and the Bronze Age sites.

China

The earliest traces of early humans, Homo erectus, in East Asia have been found in China. Fossilized remains of Yuanmou Man were found in Yunnan province in southwest China and have been dated to 1.7 Ma. Stone tools from the Nihewan Basin of the Hebei province in northern China are 1.66 million years old.

Early humans were attracted to what was the warm, fertile climate of Central China more than 500,000 years ago. Skeletal remains of about 45 individuals, known collectively as Peking Man were found in a limestone cave in Yunnan province at Zhoukoudian. They date from 400,000 to 600,000 years ago and some researchers believe that evidence of hearths and artifacts means that they controlled fire, although this is challenged by other archaeologists. About 800 miles west of this site, near Xi'an in the Shaanxi province are remains of a hominid who lived earlier than Peking Man.

Between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, humans lived in various places in China, such as Guanyindong in Guizhou, where they made Levallois stone artefacts. After 100,000 BCE, Homo sapiens lived in China and by 25,000 BCE the modern humans lived in isolated locations on the North China Plain, where they fished and hunted for food. They made artifacts of bone and shell.

Starting about 5000 BCE humans lived in Yellow River valley settlements were they farmed, fished, raised pigs and dogs for food, and grew millet and rice. Begun during the late Neolithic period, they were the earliest communities in China. Its artifacts include ceramic pots, fishhooks, knives, arrows and needles. In the northwest Shaanxi, Gansu and Henan provinces two cultures were established by about the sixth millennium BCE. They produced red pottery. Other cultures that emerged, that also made pottery, include the Bao-chi and Banpo people of Shaanxi and the Chishan people of Hebei.

The Yangshao people, who existed between 5000 and 2500 BCE, were farmers who lived in distinctive dwelling which were partly below the surface. Their pottery included designs which may have been symbols that later evolved into written language. Their villages were in western Henan, southwestern Shanxi and central Shaanxi. Between 2500 and 1000 BCE the Longshan culture existed in southern, eastern and northeastern China and into Manchuria. They had superior farming and ceramic making techniques to that of the Yangshao people and had ritualistic burial practices and worshiped their ancestors. Subsequent dynasties include the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, when the Old Chinese language developed.

Taiwan

The Prehistory of Taiwan ended with the arrival of the Dutch East India Company in 1624, and is known from archaeological finds throughout the island. The earliest evidence of human habitation dates back 50,000 years or more, when the Taiwan Strait was exposed by lower sea levels as a land bridge. Around 5000 years ago farmers from mainland China settled on the island. These people are believed to have been speakers of Austronesian languages, which dispersed from Taiwan across the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The current Taiwanese aborigines are believed to be their descendants.

Korea

Prehistoric Korea is the era of human existence in the Korean Peninsula for which written records did not exist. It, however, constitutes the greatest segment of the Korean past and is the major object of study in the disciplines of archaeology, geology, and palaeontology.

Japan

The study of Prehistoric Japan includes Japanese Paleolithic and Jōmon.

Near East

The Near East is a geographical term that roughly encompasses Western Asia. Despite having varying definitions within different academic circles, the term was originally applied to the maximum extent of the Ottoman Empire, but has since been gradually replaced by the term Middle East. The region is sometimes called the Levant. 

At 1.4 million years, Ubeidiya in the northern Jordan River Valley is the earliest Homo erectus site in the Levant.

 

Near East Bronze Age timeline:

 

South Asia

Dolmen from Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, India. Woodcut from the article "Indiska fornsaker" by Hans Hildebrand.

 

South Asia is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities, also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east. Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian Plate, which rises above sea level as the Indian subcontinent south of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush. South Asia is bounded on the south by the Indian Ocean and on land (clockwise, from west) by West Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. 

The Riwat site in modern-day Pakistan contains a few artifacts – a core and two flakes – that might date human activity there to 1.9 million years ago, but these dates are still controversial.

The South Asian prehistory is explored in the articles about Prehistoric Sri Lanka, India and Tamil Nadu

 

Bronze Age India timeline:

 

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic and volcanic activity. Southeast Asia consists of two geographic regions: (1) Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as Indochina, comprising Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Vietnam; and (2) Maritime Southeast Asia, comprising Brunei, Malaysia, East Timor, Indonesia, Philippines, and Singapore.

The rich Sangiran Formation in Central Java (Indonesia) has yielded the earliest evidence of hominin presence in Southeast Asia. These Homo erectus fossils date to more than 1.6 Ma. Remains found in Mojokerto have been dated to 1.49 Ma.

Its history is told by region, including the Early history of Burma and Cambodia, as well as the articles about Prehistoric Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Skeleton remains were found of a hominid that was only 3 feet (0.91 m) tall as an adult in Indonesia on the island of Flores. It had a small brain and, nicknamed "the Hobbit" for its diminutive structure, was classified distinctly as Homo floresiensis. The small hominid lived about 18,000 years ago.

Early expansions of hominins out of Africa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Successive dispersals of      Homo erectus (yellow),      Homo neanderthalensis (ochre) and      Homo sapiens (red).

 

Several expansions of populations of archaic humans (genus Homo) out of Africa and throughout Eurasia took place in the course of the Lower Paleolithic, and into the beginning Middle Paleolithic, between about 2.1 million and 0.2 million years ago (Ma). These expansions are collectively known as Out of Africa I, in contrast to the expansion of Homo sapiens (anatomically modern humans) into Eurasia, which may have begun shortly after 0.2 million years ago (known in this context as "Out of Africa II").

The earliest presence of Homo (or indeed any hominin) outside of Africa dates to close to 2 million years ago. A 2018 study claims human presence at Shangchen, central China, as early as 2.12 Ma based on magnetostratigraphic dating of the lowest layer containing stone artefacts.^[2] The oldest known human skeletal remains outside of Africa are from Dmanisi, Georgia (Dmanisi skull 4), and are dated to 1.8 Ma. These remains are classified as Homo erectus georgicus.

Later waves of expansion are proposed around 1.4 Ma (early Acheulean industries), associated with Homo antecessor and 0.8 Ma (cleaver-producing Acheulean groups, associated with Homo heidelbergensis).

Until the early 1980s, early humans were thought to have been restricted to the African continent in the Early Pleistocene, or until about 0.8 Ma; Hominin migrations outside East Africa were apparently rare in the Early Pleistocene, leaving a fragmentary record of events.

Early dispersals

Forensic interpretation of Homo habilis

 

Pre-Homo hominin expansion out of Africa is suggested by the presence of Graecopithecus and Ouranopithecus, found in Greece and Anatolia and dated to c. 8 million years ago, but these are probably Homininae but not Hominini. Possibly related are the Trachilos footprints found in Crete, dated to close to 6 million years ago. 

Australopithecina emerge about 5.6 million years ago, in East Africa (Afar Depression). Gracile australopithecines (Australopithecus afarensis) emerge in the same region, around 4 million years ago. The earliest known retouched tools were found in Lomekwi, Kenya, and date back to 3.3 Ma, in the late Pliocene. They might be the product of Australopithecus garhi or Paranthropus aethiopicus, the two known hominins contemporary with the tools. Homo is assumed to have emerged by around 2 million years ago, Homo habilis being found at about 2.1 million years ago at Lake Turkana, Kenya. The delineation of the "human" genus, Homo, from Australopithecus is somewhat contentious, for which reason the superordinate term "hominin" is often used to include both. "Hominin" technically includes chimpanzees as well as pre-human species as old as 10 million years ago (the separation of Homininae into Hominini and Gorillini). 

The earliest known hominin presence outside of Africa, dates to close to 2 million years ago. A 2018 study claims evidence for human presence at Shangchen, central China, as early as 2.12 Ma based on magnetostratigraphic dating of the lowest layer containing stone artefacts.

It has been suggested that Homo floresiensis was descended from such an early expansion. It is not clear whether these earliest hominins leaving Africa should be considered Homo habilis, or a form of early Homo or late Australopithecus closely related to Homo habilis, or a very early form of Homo erectus. In any case, the morphology of H. floresiensis has been found to show greatest similarity with Australopithecus sediba, Homo habilis and Dmanisi Man, raising the possibility that the ancestors of H. floresiensis left Africa before the appearance of H. erectus. A phylogenetic analysis published in 2017 suggests that H. floresiensis was descended from a species (presumably Australopithecine) ancestral to Homo habilis, making it a "sister species" either to H. habilis or to a minimally habilis-erectus-ergaster-sapiens clade, and its line is older than H. erectus itself. On the basis of this classification, H. floresiensis is hypothesized to represent a hitherto unknown and very early migration out of Africa, dating to before 2.1 million years ago. A similar conclusion is suggested by the date of 2.1 Ma for the oldest Shangchen artefacts.

Homo erectus

Map of the distribution of Middle Pleistocene (Acheulean) cleaver finds

 

Forensic reconstruction of an adult male Homo erectus.

 

Homo erectus emerges just after 2 million years ago. Early H. erectus would have lived face to face with H. habilis in East Africa for nearly half a million years. The oldest Homo erectus fossils appear almost contemporaneously, shortly after two million years ago, both in Africa and in the Caucasus. The earliest well-dated Eurasian H. erectus site is Dmanisi in Georgia, securely dated to 1.8 Ma. A skull found at Dmanisi is evidence for caring for the old. The skull shows that this Homo erectus was advanced in age and had lost all but one tooth years before death, and it is perhaps unlikely that this hominid would have survived alone. It is not certain, however, that this is sufficient proof for caring – a partially paralysed chimpanzee at the Gombe reserve survived for years without help. The earliest known evidence for African H. erectus, dubbed Homo ergaster, is a single occipital bone (KNM-ER 2598), described as "H. erectus-like", and dated to about 1.9 Ma (contemporary with Homo rudolfensis). This is followed by a fossil gap, the next available fossil being KNM-ER 3733, a skull dated to 1.6 Ma. Early Pleistocene sites in North Africa, the geographical intermediate of East Africa and Georgia, are in poor stratigraphic context. The earliest of the dated is Ain Hanech in northern Algeria (c. 1.8 – 1.2 Ma), an Oldowan grade layer. These sites attest that early Homo erectus have crossed the North African tracts, which are usually hot and dry. There is little time between Homo erectus’ apparent arrival in South Caucasus around 1.8 Ma, and its probable arrival in East and Southeast Asia. There is evidence of H. erectus in Yuanmou, China, dating to 1.7 Ma and in Sangiran, on Java, Indonesia, from 1.66 Ma.

Ferring et al. (2011) suggest that it was still Homo habilis that reached West Asia, and that early H. erectus developed there. H. erectus would then have dispersed from West Asia, to East Asia (Peking Man) Southeast Asia (Java Man), back to Africa (Homo ergaster), and to Europe (Tautavel Man).

It appears H. erectus took longer to move into Europe, the earliest site being Barranco León in southeastern Spain dated to 1.4 Ma, associated with Homo antecessor. and a controversial Pirro Nord in Southern Italy, allegedly from 1.7 – 1.3 Ma. The paleobiogeography of early human dispersals in western Eurasia characterizes H. ex gr. erectus as a temperature sensitive stenobiont, that failed to disperse north of the Alpide Belt . The geographically restricted earliest human presence in the Iberian Peninsula should be regarded as an evidence of sustainable presence of human population in this isolated area. The Pannonian plane situated south-west from the Carpathian Mountains apparently was characterized by comparatively warm climate similar to that of the Mediterranean Area, while the climate of the western European paleobiogeographic area was mitigated by Gulf Stream influence and could support the episodic hominin dispersals toward the Iberian Peninsula. Apparently, the faunal exchanges between southeastern Europe and the Near East and southern Asia were controlled by the complex interaction of such geographic obstacles as the Bosporus and the Manych Strait, the climate barrier from the north of the Greater Caucasus range, and the 41 kyr glacial Milankovitch cycles that repeatedly closed Bosporus and thus triggered the two-way faunal exchange between southeastern Europe and Near East, and, apparently, the further westward dispersal of the archaic hominins in Eurasia.

By 1 Ma, Homo erectus had spread across Eurasia (mostly restricted to latitudes south of the 50th parallel north). It is hard to say, however, whether settlement was continuous in Western Europe, or if successive waves repopulated the territory in glacial interludes. Early Acheulean tools at Ubeidiya from 1.4 Ma is some evidence for a continuous settlement in the West, as successive waves out of Africa after then would likely have brought Acheulean technology to Western Europe.

Presence of Lower Paleolithic human remains in Indonesian islands is good evidence for seafaring by Homo erectus late in the Early Pleistocene. Bednarik suggests that navigation had appeared by 1 Ma, possibly to exploit offshore fishing grounds. He has reproduced a primitive dirigible raft to demonstrate the feasibility of faring across the Lombok Strait on such a device, which he believes to have been done before 850 ka. The strait has maintained a width of at least 20 km for the whole of the Pleistocene. Such an achievement by Homo erectus in the Early Pleistocene offers some strength to the suggested water routes out of Africa, as the Gibraltar, Sicilian, and Bab-el-Mandeb exit routes are harder to consider if watercraft are deemed beyond the capacities of Homo erectus.

Homo heidelbergensis

Forensic interpretation of an adult male Homo rhodesiensis based on the Kabwe skull.

 

Archaic humans in Europe beginning about 0.8 Ma (cleaver-producing Acheulean groups) are classified as a separate, erectus-derived species, known as Homo heidelbergensis. H. heidelbergensis from about 0.4 Ma develops its own characteristic industry, known as Clactonian. H. heidelbergensis is closely related to Homo rhodesiensis (also identified as Homo heidelbergensis sensu lato or African H. heidelbergensis), known to be present in southern Africa by 0.3 Ma. 

Homo sapiens emerges before about 0.3 Ma from a lineage closely related to early H. heidelbergensis. The earliest presence of H. sapiens in West Asia, and thus the beginning of "Out of Africa II", may date to as early as 0.3 Ma and is ascertained for 0.13 Ma.

Routes out of Africa

Most attention as to the route taken from Africa to West Asia is given to the Bab-el-Mandeb, connecting the Horn of Africa and Arabia, which may have allowed dry passage during some periods of the Pleistocene. Other candidates are Levantine corridor and the Strait of Gibraltar. A route across the Strait of Sicily was suggesed in the 1970s but is not now considered likely. 

Bab-el-Mandeb strait

 

Bab-el-Mandeb is a 30 km strait between East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, with a small island, Perim, 3 km off the Arabian bank. The strait has a major appeal in the study of Eurasian expansion in that it brings East Africa in direct proximity with Eurasia. It does not require hopping from one water body to the next across the North African desert.

The land connection with Arabia disappeared in the Pliocene, and though it may have briefly reformed, the evaporation of the Red Sea and associated increase in salinity would have left traces in the fossil record after just 200 years and evaporite deposits after 600 years. Neither have been detected. A strong current flows from the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean and crossing would have been difficult without a land connection. 

Oldowan grade tools are reported from Perim Island, implying that the strait could have been crossed in the Early Pleistocene, but these finds have yet to be confirmed.

The Strait of Gibraltar is the Atlantic entryway to the Mediterranean, where Spanish and Moroccan banks are only 14 km apart. A decrease in sea levels in the Pleistocene due to glaciation would not have brought this down to less than 10 km. Deep currents push westwards, and surface water flows strongly back into the Mediterranean. Entrance into Eurasia across the strait of Gibraltar could explain the hominin remains at Barranco León in southeastern Spain (1.4 Ma) and Sima del Elefante in northern Spain (1.2 Ma). But the site of Pirro Nord in southern Italy, allegedly from 1.3 – 1.7 Ma, suggests a possible arrival from the East. Resolution is insufficient to settle the matter.

Passage across the Strait of Sicily was suggested by Alimen (1975) based on the 1973 discovery Sicilian Oldowan grade tools in Sicily. Radiometric dates, however, have not been produced, and the artefacts might as well be from the Middle Pleistocene, and it is unlikely that there was a land bridge during the Pleistocene.

Causes for dispersal

Climate change and hominin flexibility

For a given species in a given environment, available resources will limit the number of individuals that can survive indefinitely. This is the carrying capacity. Upon reaching this threshold, individuals may find it easier to gather resources in the poorer yet less exploited peripheral environment than in the preferred habitat. Homo habilis could have developed some baseline behavioural flexibility prior to its expansion into the peripheries (such as encroaching into the predatory guild). This flexibility could then have been positively selected and amplified, leading to Homo erectus' adaptation to the peripheral open habitats. A new and environmentally flexible hominin population could have come back to the old niche and replaced the ancestral population. Moreover, some step-wise shrinking of the woodland and the associated reduction of hominin carrying capacity in the woods around 1.8 Ma, 1.2 Ma, and 0.6 Ma would have stressed the carrying capacity's pressure for adapting to the open grounds.

With Homo erectus' new environmental flexibility, favourable climate fluxes likely opened it the way to the Levantine corridor, perhaps sporadically, in the Early Pleistocene.

Chasing fauna

Lithic analysis implies that Oldowan hominins were not predators. However, Homo erectus appears to have followed animal migrations to the north during wetter periods, likely as a source of scavenged food. The sabre-tooth cat Megantereon was an apex predator of the Early and Middle Pleistocene (before MIS 12). It became extinct in Africa c. 1.5 Ma, but had already moved out through the Sinai, and is among the faunal remains of the Levantine hominin site of Ubeidiya, c. 1.4 Ma. It could not break bone marrow and its kills were likely an important food source for hominins, especially in glacial periods.

In colder Eurasian times, the hominin diet would have to be principally meat-based and Acheulean hunters must have competed with cats.

Coevolved zoonotic diseases

Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen suggest that the success of hominins within Eurasia once out of Africa is in part due to the absence of zoonotic diseases outside their original habitat. Zoonotic diseases are those that are transmitted from animals to humans. While a disease specific to hominins must keep its human host alive long enough to transmit itself, zoonotic diseases will not necessarily do so as they can complete their life cycle without humans. Still, these infections are well accustomed to human presence, having evolved alongside them. The higher an African ape's population density, the better a disease fares. 55% of chimps at the Gombe reserve die of disease, most of them zoonotic. The majority of these diseases are still restricted to hot and damp African environments. Once hominins had moved out into drier and colder habitats of higher latitudes, one major limiting factor in population growth was out of the equation.

Physiological traits

While Homo habilis was certainly bipedal, its long arms are indicative of an arboreal adaptation. Homo erectus had longer legs and shorter arms, revealing a transition to obligate terrestriality, though it remains unclear how this change in relative leg length might have been an advantage. Sheer body size, on the other hand, seems to have allowed for better walking energy efficiency and endurance. A larger Homo erectus would also dehydrate more slowly and could thus cover greater distances before facing thermoregulatory limitations. The ability for prolonged walking at a normal pace would have been a decisive factor for effective colonisation of Eurasia.

Lotus Sutra

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sanskrit manuscript of the Lotus Sūtra in South Turkestan Brahmi script.

The Lotus Sūtra (Sanskrit: Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra, literally "Sūtra on the White Lotus of the Sublime Dharma") is one of the most popular and influential Mahayana sutras, and the basis on which the Tiantai, Tendai, Cheontae, and Nichiren schools of Buddhism were established. According to Paul Williams, "For many East Asian Buddhists since early times the Lotus Sutra contains the final teaching of the Buddha, complete and sufficient for salvation."

Title

Lotus Sūtra Mandala, Honpoji, Toyama, Japan, c. 1326-28

The earliest known Sanskrit title for the sūtra is the सद्धर्मपुण्डरीक सूत्र Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra, which translates to Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma. In English, the shortened form Lotus Sūtra is common. The Lotus Sūtra has also been highly regarded in a number of Asian countries where Mahāyāna Buddhism has been traditionally practiced. Translations of this title into the languages of some of these countries include: Chinese: 妙法蓮華經; pinyin: Miàofǎ Liánhuá jīng, shortened to 法華經 Fǎhuá jīng; Japanese: (妙法蓮華経 Myōhō Renge Kyō), Hokke-kyō, Hoke-kyō (法華経); Korean: Hangul: 묘법연화경; RR: Myobeop Yeonhwa gyeong, shortened to Beophwa gyeong; Tibetan: དམ་ཆོས་པད་མ་དཀར་པོའི་མདོ, Wylie: dam chos padma dkar po'i mdo, THL: Damchö Pema Karpo'i do and Vietnamese: Diệu pháp Liên hoa kinh, shortened to Pháp hoa kinh.

Textual history

Formation

In 1934, based on his text-critical analysis of Chinese and Sanskrit versions, Kogaku Fuse concluded that the Lotus Sūtra was composed in four main stages. According to Fuse, the verse sections of chapters 1-9 and 17 were probably created in the first century BCE, with the prose sections of these chapters added in the first century CE. He estimates the date of the third stage, chapters 10, 11, 13-16, 18-20 and 27, around 100 CE. Chapters 21-26 belong to the last stage (around 150 CE).

According to Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline Stone, there is consensus about the stages of composition but not about the dating of these strata.

Tamura argues that the first stage of composition, chapters 2-9, was completed around 50 CE and expanded by chapters 10-21 around 100 CE. He dates the third stage, chapters 22-27, around 150 CE.

Karashima proposes another modified version of Fuse's hypothesis with the following sequence of composition:

• chapters 2-9 form the earliest stratum. The first layer of this stratum includes the tristubh verses of these chapters which may have been transmitted orally in a Prakrit dialect. The second layer consists of the sloka verses and the prose of chapters 2-9.
• chapters 1, 10-20, 27, and a part of chapter 5 that is missing in Kumarajiva's translation.
• chapters 21-26 and the section on Devadatta in chapter 11 of the Sanskrit version.

Translations into Chinese

Three translations of the Lotus Sūtra into Chinese are extant:

• The Lotus Sūtra of the Correct Dharma (Zhèng Fǎ Huá Jīng), in ten volumes and twenty-seven chapters, translated by Dharmarakṣa in 286 CE.
• The Lotus Sūtra of the Wonderful Dharma (Miàofǎ Liánhuá jīng), in eight volumes and twenty-eight chapters, translated by Kumārajīva in 406 CE.
• The Supplemented Lotus Sūtra of the Wonderful Dharma (Tiān Pǐn Miàofǎ Liánhuá Jīng), in seven volumes and twenty-seven chapters, a revised version of Kumarajiva's text, translated by Jnanagupta and Dharmagupta in 601 CE.

The Lotus Sūtra was originally translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by Dharmarakṣa in 286 CE in Chang'an during the Western Jin Period (265-317 CE). However, the view that there is a high degree of probability that the base text for that translation was actually written in a Prakrit language has gained widespread acceptance. It may have originally been composed in a Prakrit dialect and then later translated into Sanskrit to lend it greater respectability.

This early translation by Dharmarakṣa was superseded by a translation in seven fascicles by Kumārajīva´s team in 406 CE. According to Jean-Noël Robert, Kumārajīva relied heavily on the earlier version. The Sanskrit editions are not widely used outside of academia. 

In some East Asian traditions, the Lotus Sūtra has been compiled together with two other sutras which serve as a prologue and epilogue, respectively the Innumerable Meanings Sutra (Chinese: 無量義經; pinyin: Wúliángyì jīng Muryōgi kyō) and the Samantabhadra Meditation Sutra (Chinese: 普賢經; pinyin: Pǔxián jīng, Fugen kyō). This composite sutra is often called the Threefold Lotus Sūtra or Three-Part Dharma Flower Sutra (Chinese: 法華三部経; pinyin: Fǎhuá Sānbù jīng, Hokke Sambu kyō).

Translations into Western languages

Eugene Burnouf's's 1844 "Introduction à l'histoire du Buddhisme indien" marks the start of modern academic scholarship of Buddhism in the West. His translation of a Nepalese Sanskrit manuscript of the Lotus Sutra, "Le Lotus de la bonne loi," was published posthumously in 1852. Prior to publication, a chapter from the translation was included in the 1844 journal The Dial, a publication of the New England transcendentalists, translated from French to English by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. A translation of the Lotus Sutra from an ancient Sanskrit manuscript was completed by Kern in 1884.

Western interest in the Lotus Sutra waned in the latter 19th century as Indo-centric scholars focused on older Pali and Sanskrit texts. However, Christian missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, based predominantly in China, became interested in Kumārajīva's translation of the Lotus Sutra into Chinese. These scholars attempted to draw parallels between the Old and New Testaments to earlier Nikaya sutras and the Lotus Sutra. Abbreviated and "cristo-centric" translations were published by Richard and Soothill.

In the post World War II years, scholarly attention to the Lotus Sutra was inspired by renewed interest in Japanese Buddhism as well as archeological research in Dunhuang. This led to the 1976 Leon Hurvitz publication of the Lotus Sutra based on Kumarajiva's translation. Whereas the Hurvitz work was independent scholarship, other modern translations were sponsored by Buddhist groups: Kato Bunno (1975, Nichiren-shu/Rissho-kosei-kai), Murano Senchu (1974, Nichiren-shu), Burton Watson (1993, Soka Gakkai), and the Buddhist Text Translation Society (Xuanhua). The translations into French, Spanish, and German are based on Kumarajiva's Chinese text. Each of these translations incorporate different approaches and styles that range from complex to simplified.

Outline

Illustrated Lotus Sūtra handscroll, Kamakura period, c. 1257; ink, color, and gold on paper.

• Ch. 1, Introduction – During a gathering at Vulture Peak, Shakyamuni Buddha goes into a state of deep meditative absorption, the earth shakes in six ways, and he brings forth a ray of light which illuminates thousands of buddha-fields in the east. Bodhisattva Manjusri then states that the Buddha is about to expound his ultimate teaching.
• Ch. 2, Ways and Means – Shakyamuni explains his use of skillful means to adapt his teachings according to the capacities of his audience. He reveals that the ultimate purpose of the Buddhas is to cause sentient beings "to obtain the insight of the Buddha" and "to enter the way into the insight of the Buddha".
• Ch. 3, A Parable – The Buddha teaches a parable in which a father uses the promise of various toy carts to get his children out of a burning house. Once they are outside, he gives them all one large cart to travel in instead. This symbolizes how the Buddha uses the Three Vehicles: Arhatship, Pratyekabuddhahood and Samyaksambuddhahood, as skillful means to liberate all beings – even though there is only one vehicle. The Buddha also promises Sariputra that he will attain Buddhahood.
• Ch. 4, Faith and Understanding – Four senior disciples address the Buddha. They tell the parable of the poor son and his rich father, who guides him with pedagogically skillful devices to regain self-confidence and "recognize his own Buddha-wisdom".
• Ch. 5, Parable of the plants – This parable says that the Dharma is like a great monsoon rain that nourishes many different kinds of plants who represent Śrāvakas, Pratyekabuddhas, and Bodhisattvas, and all beings receiving the teachings according to their respective capacities.
• Ch. 6, Assurances of Becoming a Buddha – The Buddha prophesies the enlightenment of Mahakasyapa, Subhuti, Mahakatyayana and Mahamaudgalyayana.
• Ch. 7, The Magic City – The Buddha teaches a parable about a group of people seeking a great treasure who are tired of their journey and wish to quit. Their guide creates a magical phantom city for them to rest in and then makes it disappear.^] The Buddha explains that the magic city represents the "Hinayana nirvana" and the treasure is buddhahood.
• Ch. 8, Assurances for 500 Arhats. – 500 Arhats are assured of their future Buddhahood. They tell the parable of a man who has fallen asleep after drinking and whose friend sews a jewel into his garment. When he wakes up he continues a life of poverty without realizing he is really rich, he only discovers the jewel after meeting his old friend again. The hidden jewel has been interpreted as a symbol of Buddha-nature. Zimmermann noted the similarity with the nine parables in the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra that illustrate how the indwelling Buddha in sentient beings is hidden by negative mental states.
• Ch. 9, Assurances for the Trainees and Adepts. – Ananda, Rahula and two thousand Śrāvakas are assured of their future Buddhahood.
• Ch. 10, Teacher of the Dharma – Presents the practices of teaching the sutra which includes accepting, embracing, reading, reciting, copying, explaining, propagating it, and living in accordance with its teachings. The teacher of the Dharma is praised as the messenger of the Buddha. The theme of propagating the Lotus Sūtra which starts here, continues in the remaining chapters.

The floating jeweled stupa.

• Ch. 11, The Treasure stupa – A great jeweled stupa rises from the earth and floats in the air; a voice is heard from within praising the Lotus Sūtra. Another Buddha resides in the tower, the Buddha Prabhūtaratna who is said to have made a vow to make an appearance to verify the truth of the Lotus Sutra whenever it is preached. Countless manifestations of Shakyamuni Buddha in the ten directions are now summoned by the Buddha. Thereafter Prabhūtaratna invites Shakyamuni to sit beside him in the jeweled stupa. This chapter reveals the existence of multiple Buddhas at the same time and the doctrine of the eternal nature of Buddhahood.
• Ch. 12, Devadatta – Through the stories of the dragon king's daughter and Devadatta, the Buddha teaches that everyone can become enlightened – women, animals, and even the most sinful murderers.
• Ch. 13, Encouragement to uphold the sutra – The Buddha encourages all beings to embrace the teachings of the sutra in all times, even in the most difficult ages to come. The Buddha prophesies that six thousand nuns who are also present will become Buddhas.
• Ch. 14, Peace and Contentment – Manjusri asks how a bodhisattva should spread the teaching. In his reply Shakyamuni Buddha describes the proper conduct and the appropriate sphere of relations of a bodhisattva. A bodhisattva should not talk about the faults of other preachers or their teachings. He is encouraged to explain the Mahayana teachings when he answers questions. Virtues such as patience, gentleness, a calm mind, wisdom and compassion are to be cultivated.
• Ch. 15, Springing Up from the Earth – In this chapter countless bodhisattvas spring up from the earth, ready to teach, and the Buddha declares that he has trained these bodhisattvas in the remote past. This confuses some disciples including Maitreya, but the Buddha affirms that he has taught all of these bodhisattvas himself.
• Ch. 16, The eternal lifespan of the Tathagata – The Buddha explains that he is truly eternal and omniscient. He then teaches the Parable of the Excellent Physician who entices his sons into taking his medicine by feigning his death.
• Ch. 17, Merits and Virtues of enlightenment – The Buddha explains that since he has been teaching as many beings as the sands of the Ganges have been saved.
• Ch. 18, Merits and Virtues of Joyful Acceptance – Faith in the teachings of the sutra brings much merit and lead to good rebirths.
• Ch. 19, Merits and Virtues obtained by a Teacher of the Dharma – The relative importance of the merits of the six senses are explained by the Buddha.
• Ch. 20, The Bodhisattva Sadāparibhūta – The Buddha tells a story about a previous life when he was a Bodhisattva called Sadāparibhūta (Never Disparaging) and how he treated every person he met, good or bad, with respect, always remembering that they will too become Buddhas.
• Ch. 21, The Spiritual Power of the Tathagata – Reveals that the sutra contains all of the Eternal Buddha’s secret spiritual powers. The bodhisattvas who have sprung from the earth (ch 15) are entrusted with the task of propagating it.
• Ch. 22, The Passing of the Commission – The Buddha transmits the Lotus Sutra to all bodhisattvas in his congregation and entrusts them with its safekeeping. The Buddha Prabhūtaratna in his jewelled stupa and the countless manifestations of Shakyamuni Buddha return to their respective buddha-fields.

Avalokiteśvara, Ajanta cave no 1, 5th century

• Ch. 23, The Bodhisattva Bhaiṣajyarāja – The Buddha tells the story of the 'Medicine King' Bodhisattva, who, in a previous life, burnt his body as a supreme offering to a Buddha. The hearing and chanting of the Lotus Sūtra' is also said to cure diseases. The Buddha uses nine similes to declare that the Lotus Sūtra is the king of all sutras.
• Ch. 24, The Bodhisattva Gadgadasvara – "Wonderful Voice" (Gadgadasvara), a Bodhisattva from a distant world, visits Vulture Peak to worship the Buddha. Bodhisattva "Wonderful Voice" once made offerings of various kinds of music to the Buddha "Cloud-Thunder-King". His accumulated merits enable him to take 34 different forms to propagate the Lotus Sutra.
• Ch. 25, The Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara – This chapter is devoted to Avalokiteśvara, describing him as a compassionate bodhisattva who hears the cries of sentient beings, and rescues those who call upon his name.
• Ch. 26, Dhāraṇī – Hariti and several Bodhisattvas offer sacred formulae (dhāraṇī) in order to protect those who keep and recite the Lotus Sūtra.
• Ch. 27, King Wonderfully Adorned – A chapter on the conversion of King 'Wonderful-Adornment' by his two sons.
• Ch. 28, Encouragement of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra – A bodhisattva called "Universal Virtue" asks the Buddha how to preserve the sutra in the future. Samantabhadra promises to protect and guard all those who keep this sutra in the future Age of Dharma Decline.

Teachings

Portable shrine depicting Buddha Sakyamuni preaching the Lotus Sūtra. The Walters Art Museum.

One vehicle, many skillful means

This Lotus Sūtra is known for its extensive instruction on the concept and usage of skillful means – (Sanskrit: upāya, Japanese: hōben), the seventh paramita or perfection of a Bodhisattva – mostly in the form of parables. The many 'skillful' or 'expedient' means and the "three vehicles" are revealed to all be part of the One Vehicle (Ekayāna), which is also the Bodhisattva path. This is also one of the first sutras to use the term Mahāyāna, or "Great Vehicle". In the Lotus Sūtra, the One Vehicle encompasses so many different teachings because the Buddha's compassion and wish to save all beings led him to adapt the teaching to suit many different kinds of people. As Paul Williams explains:

Although the corpus of teachings attributed to the Buddha, if taken as a whole, embodies many contradictions, these contradictions are only apparent. Teachings are appropriate to the context in which they are given and thus their contradictions evaporate. The Buddha’s teachings are to be used like ladders, or, to apply an age-old Buddhist image, like a raft employed to cross a river. There is no point in carrying the raft once the journey has been completed and its function fulfilled. When used, such a teaching transcends itself.

The sutra emphasizes that all these seemingly different teachings are actually just skillful applications of the one Dharma and thus all constitute the "One Buddha Vehicle and knowledge of all modes". The Lotus Sūtra sees all other teachings are subservient to, propagated by and in the service of the ultimate truth of the One Vehicle leading to Buddhahood. The Lotus Sūtra also claims to be superior to other sūtras and states that full Buddhahood is only arrived at by exposure to its teachings and skillful means.

All beings have the potential to become Buddhas

The dragon king´s daughter offers her priceless pearl to the Buddha. The narrative of her instantaneous attainment of Buddhahood was understood as a promise of the enlightenment of women. Frontispiece of a 12th century Lotus Sutra handscroll.

The One Vehicle doctrine defines the enlightenment of a Buddha (anuttara samyak sambhodi) as the ultimative goal and the sutra predicts that all those who hear the Dharma will eventually achieve this goal. Many of the Buddha´s disciples receive prophecies that they will become future Buddhas. Devadatta, who, according to the Pali texts, had attempted to kill the Buddha, receives a prediction of enlightenment. Even those, who practice only simple forms of devotion, such as paying respect to the Buddha, or drawing a picture of the Buddha, are assured of their future Buddhahood.

Although the term buddha-nature (buddhadhatu) is not mentioned once in the Lotus Sutra, Japanese scholars suggest that the concept is implicitly present in the text. Vasubandhu (fl. 4th to 5th century CE), an influential scholar monk from Ghandara, interpreted the Lotus Sutra as a teaching of buddha-nature and later commentaries tended to adopt this view. Based on his analysis of chapter 5, Zhanran (711-778), a scholar monk of the Chinese Tiantai school, argued that insentient things also possess buddha-nature and in medieval Japan, the Tendai Lotus school developed its concept of original enlightenment which claimed the whole world to be originally enlighted.

The nature of the Buddhas

Another key concept introduced by the Lotus Sūtra is the idea of the eternal Buddha, who achieved enlightenment eons ago, but remains in the world to help teach beings the Dharma time and again. The life span of this primordial Buddha is beyond imagination, his biography and his apparent death are portrayed as skillful means to teach sentient beings. The Buddha of the Lotus Sūtra states:

In this way, since my attainment of Buddhahood it has been a very great interval of time. My life-span is incalculable asatkhyeyakalpas [rather a lot of aeons], ever enduring, never perishing. O good men! The life-span I achieved in my former treading of the bodhisattva path even now is not exhausted, for it is twice the above number. Yet even now, though in reality I am not to pass into extinction [enter final nirvana], yet I proclaim that I am about to accept extinction. By resort to these expedient devices [this skill-in-means] the Thus Come One [the Tathagata] teaches and converts the beings.

He reveals himself as the "father" of all beings and evinces the loving care of just such a father. The idea that the physical death of a Buddha is the termination of that Buddha is graphically refuted by the appearance of another Buddha, who passed long before. In the vision of the Lotus Sūtra, Buddhas are ultimately immortal.

Crucially, not only are there multiple Buddhas in this view, but an infinite stream of Buddhas extending infinitely in space in the ten directions and through unquantifiable eons of time. The Lotus Sūtra illustrates a sense of timelessness and the inconceivable, often using large numbers and measurements of time and space.

The Lotus Sūtra also teaches that the Buddha has many embodiments or emanations and these are the countless bodhisattva disciples. These bodhisattvas choose to remain in the world to save all beings and to keep the teaching alive. According to Gene Reeves: "Because the Buddha and his Dharma are alive in such bodhisattvas, he himself continues to be alive. The fantastically long life of the Buddha, in other words, is at least partly a function of and dependent on his being embodied in others." The Lotus Sūtra also teaches various dhāraṇīs or the prayers of different celestial bodhisattvas who out of compassion protect and teach all beings. The lotus flower imagery points to this quality of the bodhisattvas. The lotus symbolizes the bodhisattva who is rooted in the earthly mud and yet flowers above the water in the open air of enlightenment.

Impact

According to Donald Lopez, the Lotus Sutra is "arguably the most famous of all Buddhist texts," presenting "a radical re-vision of both the Buddhist path and of the person of the Buddha."

The Lotus Sutra was frequently cited in Indian works by Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Candrakirti, Shantideva and several authors of the Madhyamaka and the Yogacara school. The only extant Indian commentary on the Lotus Sutra is attributed to Vasubandhu. According to Jonathan Silk, the influence of the Lotus Sūtra in India may have been limited, but "it is a prominent scripture in East Asian Buddhism." The sutra has most prominence in Tiantai (sometimes called "The Lotus School") and Nichiren Buddhism. It is also influential in Zen Buddhism.

China

Tao Sheng, a fifth-century Chinese Buddhist monk wrote the earliest extant commentary on the Lotus Sūtra. Tao Sheng was known for promoting the concept of Buddha nature and the idea that even deluded people will attain enlightenment. Daoxuan (596-667) of the Tang Dynasty wrote that the Lotus Sutra was "the most important sutra in China".

Zhiyi (538–597 CE), the generally credited founder of the Tiantai school of Buddhism, was the student of Nanyue Huisi who was the leading authority of his time on the Lotus Sūtra. Zhiyi's philosophical synthesis saw the Lotus Sūtra as the final teaching of the Buddha and the highest teaching of Buddhism. He wrote two commentaries on the sutra: Profound meanings of the Lotus Sūtra and Words and phrases of the Lotus Sūtra. Zhiyi also linked the teachings of the Lotus Sūtra with the Buddha nature teachings of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra and made a distinction between the "Eternal Buddha" Vairocana and the manifestations. In Tiantai, Vairocana (the primeval Buddha) is seen as the 'Bliss body' – Sambhogakāya – of the historical Gautama Buddha.

Japan

The Lotus Sūtra is a very important sutra in Tiantai and correspondingly, in Japanese Tendai (founded by Saicho, 767–822). Tendai Buddhism was the dominant form of mainstream Buddhism in Japan for many years and the influential founders of popular Japanese Buddhist sects including Nichiren, Honen, Shinran and Dogen were trained as Tendai monks.

Calligraphic mandala (Gohonzon) inscribed by Nichiren in 1280. The central characters are the title of the Lotus Sūtra.

Nichiren, a 13th-century Japanese Buddhist monk, founded an entire school of Buddhism based on his belief that the Lotus Sūtra is "the Buddha´s ultimate teaching", and that the title is the essence of the sutra, "the seed of Buddhahood". Nichiren held that chanting the title of the Lotus Sūtra – Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō – was the only way to practice Buddhism in the degenerate age of Dharma decline and was the highest practice of Buddhism. Nichiren described chapters 10-22 as the "third realm" of the Lotus Sutra (Daisan hōmon) which emphasizes the need to endure the trials of life and bodhisattva practice of the true law in the real saha world.

Dogen, the 13th-century Japanese founder of Sōtō Zen Buddhism, used the Lotus Sūtra often in his writings. According to Taigen Dan Leighton, "While Dogen's writings employ many sources, probably along with his own intuitive meditative awareness, his direct citations of the Lotus Sūtra indicate his conscious appropriation of its teachings as a significant source" and that his writing "demonstrates that Dogen himself saw the Lotus Sutra, 'expounded by all buddhas in the three times,' as an important source for this self-proclamatory rhetorical style of expounding." In his Shobogenzo, Dogen directly discusses the Lotus Sūtra in the essay Hokke-Ten-Hokke, "The Dharma Flower Turns the Dharma Flower". The essay uses a dialogue from the Platform Sutra between Huineng and a monk who has memorized the Lotus Sūtra to illustrate the non-dual nature of Dharma practice and sutra study. During his final days, Dogen spent his time reciting and writing the Lotus Sutra in his room which he named "The Lotus Sutra Hermitage".

The Soto Zen monk Ryōkan also studied the Lotus Sūtra extensively and this sutra was the biggest inspiration for his poetry and calligraphy. The Rinzai Zen master Hakuin Ekaku achieved enlightenment while reading the third chapter of the Lotus Sūtra.

According to Shields, "modern(ist)" interpretations of the Lotus Sutra begin with the early 20th century nationalist applications of the Lotus Sutra by Chigaku Tanaka, Nissho Honda, Seno'o, and Nisshō Inoue. Japanese new religions began forming in the 19th century and the trend accelerated after World War II. Some of these groups have pushed the study of the Lotus Sutra to a global scale. While noting the importance of several Japanese New Religious Movements to Lotus Sutra scholarship, Lopez focuses on the contributions made by the Reiyukai and Soka Gakkai and Stone discusses the contributions of the Soka Gakkai and Risshō Kōsei Kai. Etai Yamada (1900–1999), the 253rd head priest of the Tendai denomination conducted ecumenical dialogues with religious leaders around the world based on his interpretation of the Lotus Sutra which culminated in a 1987 summit. He also used the Lotus Sutra to move his sect from a "temple Buddhism" perspective to one based on social engagement. Nichiren-inspired Buddhist organizations have shared their interpretations of the Lotus Sutra through publications, academic symposia, and exhibitions.

Influence on East Asian culture

Prabhūtaratna and Shakyamuni sitting side by side in the jewelled stupa; wall painting, Yulin Caves

The Lotus Sūtra has had a great impact on East Asian literature, art, and folklore for over 1400 years.

Art

Various events from it are depicted in religious art. Wang argues that the explosion of art inspired by the Lotus Sutra, starting from the 7th and 8th centuries in China, was a confluence of text and the topography of the Chinese medieval mind in which the latter dominated.

Motifs from the Lotus Sutra figure prominently in the Dunhuang caves built in the Sui era. In the fifth century, the scene of Shakyamuni and Prabhutaratna Buddhas seated together as depicted in the 11th chapter of the Lotus Sutra became arguably the most popular theme in Chinese Buddhist art. Examples can be seen in a bronze plaque (year 686) at Hase-dera Temple in Japan and, in Korea, at Dabotap and Seokgatap Pagodas, built in 751, at Bulguksa Temple.

Literature

Tamura refers to the "Lotus Sutra literary genre." Its ideas and images are writ large in great works of Chinese and Japanese literature such as The Dream of the Red Chamber and The Tale of Genji. The Lotus Sutra has had an outsized influence on Japanese Buddhist poetry. Far more poems have been Lotus Sutra-inspired than other sutras. In the work Kanwa taisho myoho renge-kyo, a compendium of more than 120 collections of poetry from the Heian period, there are more than 1360 poems with references to the Lotus Sutra in just their titles.

Folklore

The Lotus Sutra has inspired a branch of folklore based on figures in the sutra or subsequent people who have embraced it. The story of the Dragon King's daughter, who attained enlightenment in the 12th (Devadatta) chapter of the Lotus Sutra, appears in the Complete Tale of Avalokiteśvara and the Southern Seas and the Precious Scroll of Sudhana and Longnü folkstories. The Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra is a collection of 129 stories with folklore motifs based on "Buddhist pseudo-biographies."