The Lotus Sutra

The Return of  Murano’s Classic Translation


The Lotus Sutra is one of the most important sutras in Mahayana Buddhism. It was translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva in 406 under the title: Myohorengekyo (Miao-Fa-Lien-Hua-Ching). The Chinese title means “Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.” The translation in this volume is based upon Kumarajiva’s Chinese work. 


The translator, Bishop Senchu Murano, was an ordained priest in Nichiren Shu. Murano earned a degree in East Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 1938 and served as a teacher of Buddhist studies at Rissho University in Tokyo from 1962 to 1979. 


Murano’s ambitious work on this landmark translation took 20 years to complete. It was originally published in 1974 and was the first full translation of Kumarajiva’s Chinese work to appear in English. 


Long out of print, Murano’s groundbreaking work been faithfully reproduced and enhanced for the digital era. For the first time, it is now widely available to a new generation of Buddhist students and scholars.


For readers unfamiliar with Buddhist terms and cosmology, this edition includes two fully revised glossaries covering more than 1,800 entries. The glossaries include descriptions of the life of the Buddha, disciples of the Buddha, important Sanskrit and English Buddhist terms (as well as important Chinese Buddhist terms as they are used in Japan), and translated proper names given in this translation that effectively serve as a handy Buddhist dictionary.