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Mahayana sutras are a very broad genre of Buddhist scriptures of which the Mahayana Buddhist...

Mahayana sutras are a very broad genre of Buddhist scriptures of which the Mahayana Buddhist tradition claim that they are original teachings of the Buddha. The Theravada and the other Early Buddhist Schools claim that the Mahayana Sutras are later compositions, not taught by the Buddha. Various Mahayana Sutras have been included in the Tibetan Canon and the Chinese Canon. Although similar, these two canons differ in the sutras they include. The Mahayana sutras are not included nor mentioned in the Agamas and the Sutta Pitaka, which represent the oldest stratum of Buddhist scriptures, which some scholars claim are linked historically to Gautama Buddha. Generally, scholars conclude that the Mahayana scriptures were composed from the first century CE onwards, five centuries after the historical Gautama Buddha, with some of them having their roots in other scriptures, composed in the first century BCE. But it took until after the 5th century CE before the Mahayana Sutras started to influence the actual behavior of mainstream Buddhists in India. The commonly expressed misconception that Mahayana started as a lay-inspired movement is based on a selective reading of a very tiny sample of