妙法蓮華經玄義 10.78

10.78

Furthermore, speaking of ghee: this comes after all the flavors. The *Nirvāṇa Sūtra* is called ghee, and this sūtra is named the Great King's Feast; hence we know that both sūtras are ghee. Moreover, when Dīpaṃkara Buddha finished expounding the *Lotus Sūtra*, he announced his entry into nirvāṇa right at midnight. During that Buddha's single teaching period, he expounded the *Avataṃsaka* at the beginning and the *Lotus Sūtra* at the end. In the time of Kāśyapa Buddha it was also like this: neither of them clarified the *Nirvāṇa Sūtra*, both taking the *Lotus Sūtra* as the final teaching and the final flavor. Our present Buddha matured the earlier group of people, taking the *Lotus Sūtra* as ghee; then, to further mature the later segment of people, he again used the *Prajñā* to refine them before they could enter *Nirvāṇa*, again taking *Nirvāṇa* as the final teaching and the final flavor. It is like a farming family: what is planted first ripens first and is harvested first; what is planted late ripens later and is harvested later. In the *Lotus Sūtra*, the eight thousand śrāvakas and the immeasurable bodhisattvas who cut off further rebirths were the earlier-ripened fruits, harvested in the *Lotus Sūtra*, having nothing further to do. Those five thousand who got up and left on their own, and the humans and devas who were transferred, were all later-ripening, harvested in the *Nirvāṇa Sūtra*. For this reason, it is said: 'From the Mahā-prajñā emerges the Mahā-nirvāṇa'—this is the sequence for the later group. According to the *Sūtra of Immeasurable Meanings*, which says: 'Mahā-prajñā, followed by the Avataṃsaka sea-like emptiness'—this is the sequence within the Lotus Sūtra for the earlier group.