དམ་པའ་ཆས་པད་མ་དཀར་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.27

intro.27

The first works to emphasize the superiority of the Lotus Sūtra above all other sūtras are by Zhiyi (Chih-i 538–97), who lived on Tiantai Mountain. This marks the real beginning of the Tiantai school, which was based on the Lotus Sūtra, and became one of the major schools of Chinese Buddhism.⁴² The popularity of the sūtra is evident in the Dunhuang caves, which were sealed in the eleventh century. In addition to a thousand copies of the sūtra, murals portraying scenes from the sūtra, such as the floating stūpa and the burning house, are found in seventy-five of the caves.⁴³