The Lion's Roar of Queen Śrīmālā: A Buddhist Scripture on the Tathāgatagarbha Theory

The Lion's Roar of Queen Srimala, or Sri-mala-sutra (勝鬘師子吼一乘大方便方廣經), became the Mahayana scripture preeminent for teaching that all sentient beings have the potentiality of Buddhahood. It was an inspiration for both the Lankavatara-sutra and the Chinese classic Awakening of Faith. The translators present evidence that it was composed in the Andhra region of South India in the third century A.D. Thereafter it had remarkable success in China, and through Korea entered into the beginnings of Buddhism in Japan, where it has been important up to the present time. This, the first complete rendering of the scripture into a western language, utilizes all the known Sanskrit fragments, the Tibetan, the two Chinese versions and the Japanese renditions, Chinese and japanese commentaries, and various studies in Japanese.