དམ་པའ་ཆས་པད་མ་དཀར་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 9.22

9.22

You have all been practicing bodhisattva conduct and you will all become tathāgatas, arhats, perfectly enlightened buddhas.’

“Those who felt malice toward that bodhisattva did not see a tathāgata, nor hear the word Dharma, nor hear the word saṅgha for twenty thousand million eons. They experienced the unendurable suffering of the great Avīci hell for ten thousand eons. When they were all freed from that obscuration of karma, that bodhisattva mahāsattva ripened them for the highest, complete enlightenment.

“Mahā­sthāma­prāpta, if you doubt, are uncertain, are unsure, or are wondering who at that time, on that occasion, were the beings who disparaged and censured that bodhisattva mahāsattva, Mahā­sthāma­prāpta, they are the five hundred bodhisattvas such as Bhadrapāla, and the five hundred bhikṣuṇīs, such as Siṃhacandrā, and the five hundred upāsikās, such as Sugatacetanā, who are in this assembly, who are all irreversibly progressing to the highest, complete enlightenment.

“Mahā­sthāma­prāpta, there is that kind of great benefit from the aggregation of merit acquired by those who possess and teach this Dharma teaching. It causes the bodhisattva mahāsattvas to attain the highest, complete enlightenment.

“Therefore, Mahā­sthāma­prāpta, when I, the Tathāgata, have passed into nirvāṇa, the bodhisattva mahāsattvas should continuously possess this Dharma teaching, teach it, read it, and explain it.”

Thereupon the Bhagavān spoke these verses:

“I remember a time in the past