The Sutra of Filial Piety (or Sutra on the Profundity of Filial Love, Sutra on Parental Benevolence) is an apocryphal sutra composed in China and apparently an exercise in Buddhist apologetics. It is claimed to have been translated by the monk Kumārajīva.
The text attempts to synthesise native Confucian ideals with Buddhist teachings and was probably produced by Chinese Buddhist monks in imitation of the Confucian Classic of Filial Piety. The sutra seeks to refute Confucian criticism that Buddhism's traditionally monastic focus undermines the virtue of filial piety.
The sutra is still highly popular in China and Japan and in the latter is sometimes used as a focus in Naikan-type introspection practices.
Famous quotes containing the words filial piety, filial and/or piety:
“There are three major offenses against filial piety of which not producing an heir is the worst.”
—Chinese proverb.
Mencius.
“Thy due from me
Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood,
Which nature, love, and filial tenderness
Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother’s nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war against Protestant ascendancy. ...The teachings of the Church did not interest her, except as they were a rebuke to others ...”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)