A sutra, from the root _siv_, to sew, means a thread or string, and in
the old Veda religion referred to household rites or practices and the
moral conduct of life; but in Buddhist phraseology it means a body of
doctrine. A shaster or shastra, from the Sanskrit root _cas_, to govern,
relates to discipline. Of those shastras and sutras we must frequently
speak. In India and China some of those sutras are exponents, of schools
of thought or opinion, or of views or methods of looking at things,
rather than of organizations. In Japan these schools of philosophy, in
certain instances, become sects with a formal history.
In China of the present day, according to a Japanese traveller and
author, "the Chinese Buddhists seem ... to unite all different sects, so
as to make one harmonious sect." The chief divisions are those of the
blue robe, who are allied with the Lamaism of Tibet and whose doctrine
is largely "esoteric," and those of the yellow robe, who accept the
three fundamentals of principle, teaching and discipline. Dhyana or
contemplation is their principle; the Kegon or Avatamsaka sutra and the
Hokke or Saddharma Pundarika sutra, etc., form the basis of their
teaching; and the Vinaya of the Four Divisions (Dharmagupta) is their
discipline.
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