The Five Destinies and Six Destinies in the Lotus Sutra

Abstract

Previous studies show that the Lotus Sutra adopts the concept of six destinies (ṣaḍ-gati) except the latter half of the 5th chapter (Oṣadhī-parivarta), which mentions five destinies (pañca-gati) once. But these studies neither explore related expressions concerning gatis thoroughly nor pay attention to differences among Sanskrit manuscripts and Chinese translations. In this paper, our careful research on almost all the materials related to gatis in the Lotus Sutra shows that more chapters of the sutra can be interpreted to accept the concept of five destinies.