One way to think about the Mahāyāna is not as an internally consistent movement, but as an intertwining of texts made up of threads of varying circumference, weight, and texture. Among those threads, none is more luminous than the Lotus Sūtra, in part because of its influence and in part because so many things that we associate with “the Mahāyāna” are found there. Yet it is also a distinctive text with its own psyche and its own legacy of influence and interpretation. Indeed, the brilliance of the sūtra only becomes clear when one considers (or at least imagines) the circumstances of its composition, and the questions its authors wrestled with.