佛经
fó jīngThe core Mahāyāna sutras of the two Buddhist traditions that took deepest root in China. Chan and Pure Land between them define what most of East Asia means by Buddhism. Each text linked here is presented in full on its own page, with line-by-line or passage-by-passage audio, pinyin gloss, in-house English translation, and commentary on the difficult passages.
The Chinese Buddhist canon (大藏经 Dàzàngjīng, the Great Storehouse Sutra) divides into three parts (三藏 sānzàng, the three baskets, after the Sanskrit Tripiṭaka):
经 jīng (sūtra): discourses attributed to the Buddha. The word 经 originally meant the warp threads of a loom, then the foundational, classical, or canonical writings of any tradition (the Confucian classics are also called 经). Buddhist translators borrowed the term to render sūtra. A sutra is, by convention, a teaching the Buddha gave; in Mahāyāna scripture this convention extends to texts that report words spoken by buddhas and bodhisattvas in non-historical settings. The Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra are sutras in this sense. The Platform Sutra (六祖坛经) is the unique exception: a Chinese text recording the words of the Chan master Huineng, called a sutra in honor of its standing in the tradition.
律 lǜ (vinaya): the rules and code of conduct for the monastic community. Not represented on this site.
论 lùn (śāstra): treatises and commentaries by later masters. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nāgārjuna is a 论, not a 经.
The texts collected on this site are all 经 by either inheritance (translated from Sanskrit Mahāyāna sutras) or by Chinese designation (the Platform Sutra). They are the texts that ordinary practitioners chanted, monks memorized, and the tradition treated as foundational scripture rather than as scholarly commentary.
Chan Buddhism (禅宗 Chánzōng: Zen in Japanese, Seon in Korean, Thiền in Vietnamese) presents itself as 不立文字，教外别传 (bú lì wénzì, jiào wài bié chuán: "not standing on words, a transmission outside the teaching"). In practice the school developed an intense relationship with a small set of texts. Three above all carry Chan identity: a short prajñā text everyone memorizes, a medium-length prajñā text the sixth patriarch awakened on, and the only Chinese-authored text in the canon designated a sutra.
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Pure Land Buddhism (净土宗 Jìngtǔzōng) is the devotional Mahāyāna tradition centered on Amitābha Buddha (阿弥陀佛 Āmítuófó) and his Western Pure Land (西方极乐世界 Xīfāng Jílè Shìjiè, the Western World of Ultimate Bliss). The practice is straightforward: chant the name of Amitābha (念佛 niànfó) with sincere mind, and at death the practitioner is reborn in the Pure Land, where awakening becomes possible without further rebirth in the human realm. Pure Land is the most numerically dominant form of Buddhism in China today; the practice is also the foundation of Jōdo and Jōdo Shinshū in Japan.
The Pure Land canon is conventionally three sutras (净土三经), recognized as a set since at least the Tang dynasty. Each presents the Pure Land tradition from a different angle: the daily-recitation short form, the foundational long account of how the Pure Land came to be, and the visualization manual.
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Each sutra page presents the full text broken into passages (the Heart Sutra by line, the longer texts by section). For each passage you get:
The Chinese text, large and centered as the artifact. The translation that the tradition uses (Xuanzang for the Heart Sutra, Kumārajīva for the Diamond and Smaller Sukhāvatīvyūha, etc.). Names the translator and date in the page hero.
An audio button next to each passage. Click ▶ to play; click the voice indicator (女 / 男) to switch between the female and male readings. Audio is pre-rendered Azure Neural TTS: modern, conversational pronunciation rather than chanted liturgy. For chanted recordings, the major Chinese Buddhist publishing houses (Foguangshan, Dharma Drum) post free recordings on their websites and YouTube channels.
Pinyin gloss, hidden by default. The full-page toggle at the top of the text reveals all pinyin at once; the per-passage button reveals just one passage. Pinyin is romanization-only, no diacritic-stripping; tones are marked.
An English translation, in-house and explicitly so. The site's translations aim for precision and clarity rather than reproducing any standing canonical rendering. Where the tradition has a famous translation choice (e.g. form is exactly emptiness for 色即是空), the commentary discusses it.
Commentary, collapsed by default. Each passage that benefits from a note has one. Open with the small 注 button; close it the same way. The commentary is short, doctrinal, and oriented toward what the passage is doing rather than toward the history of its interpretation.