I had sent a few questions to Jundo. He asked me to post them along with his answers here. This is one of them.

Quote Originally Posted by Kaishin

I've been reading some Mahayana history lately, and wanted to get your opinion on some things. One topic brought up repeatedly in the Mahayana sutras seems to be the self-aggrandisement of sutras. For instance, the Lotus Sutra touting itself as the ultimate sutra, the premier teaching of the Buddha, etc. And that all defamers of the Sutra are destined for the hell realms and so forth
Quote Originally Posted by Jundo
The short answer is that these Mahayana Sutras were written by men (religiously inspired authors, perhaps, but not by the Buddha himself) in philosophical competition with other men who had written other sutras ... and they were trying to say "my Sutra is better than your Sutra"! That is why almost every Sutra purports to be the "highest teaching", and describes all the other Sutras as (putting words in Buddha's mouth) merely "a dumbed down version" for folks who could not handle the "highest teaching".