འཕགས་པ་ཤན་ཏ་རྒྱས་པ་ཆན་པའ་སྡ་ཉ་མའ་སྙང་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་མད 1.22

1.22

what mass of merit will they generate?”

“Your Majesty,” said the Blessed One, “imagine that all beings were endowed with the mass of merit that I have described before and that they were thrown into a prison where they would be tormented by hunger and thirst. Imagine that some beings then appeared and freed all those meritorious beings from that prison and served them for a full hundred years with offerings of Dharma robes, alms, bedding, seats, medicine, and tools. Your Majesty, what do you think? Would those beings generate a lot of merit on that basis?”

“A lot of merit, respected Blessed One! Respected Well-Gone One, the mass of merit generated by those beings would be immeasurable, limitless, and unfathomable!”

“Your Majesty,” continued the Blessed One, “now and in the future, until the last five hundred years, if any member of the kṣatriya class or any regional authority acts against the evil actions of people who steal something that has been dedicated to those who abide by the Dharma and who possess a wealth of qualities, they will generate a much greater mass of merit than that.”

The king then asked, “Respected Blessed One, if not protecting a single monk who abides by the Dharma generates that amount of nonvirtue, does protecting a single one of them generate that same amount of merit?”

“Your Majesty,” replied the Blessed One, “I have not allowed the practice of having only a single individual, or two, or three, or four; instead, Your Majesty, for the purposes of the saṅgha in the four directions,