法華經義記 2.39

2.39

The questioner further says: "You say that in the past, before Candrasūryapradīpa Buddha preached the Lotus Sūtra, he first manifested auspicious omens; at that time, when the assembly saw the auspicious omens, they also harbored doubts. At that time, there ought to have been one who raised doubts and posed questions, and there also ought to have been one who cited the past to substantiate the present and answered. Now, since you say that Varaprabha of the past was the person who propagated the sūtra, why not adduce that in the past there were questioner and respondent?" The commentator explains: "In the past, there certainly ought to have been a person who raised questions and a person who answered questions. The reason why these persons are not adduced today is that this accords with what is appropriate in the Tathāgata's way of converting and teaching. If adducing past events is beneficial for today, he then adduces them; if it is of no benefit for today, he then does not adduce them; they cannot be treated uniformly. Furthermore, even if the person who answered questions in the past was Varaprabha, and Varaprabha is simply Mañjuśrī, one should also say that today's Maitreya is simply Guṇagabhīra of the past. Why is that? Since it is said that today the mahāsattva in the stage of succession, Maitreya, posed questions, in the past it should also have been the mahāsattva in the stage of succession, Guṇagabhīra, who posed questions. Yet today's Maitreya is not the Guṇagabhīra of the past; therefore we know that he did not adduce the questioner of the past. If so, why must Mañjuśrī have been the respondent of the past?"