妙法蓮華經玄贊 1.82

1.82

"Great bhikṣu": the *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa* says that "great" is explained with three meanings: greatest among all assemblies, great obstacles severed, and revered by great people. Paramārtha gives three explanations: 1. superiorly great, superior among persons in training and beyond training; 2. substantially great, virtue and wisdom being extremely high and vast; 3. numerically great, twelve thousand persons. Now they are combined into six: 1. great in number; 2. great in abandonment, because great obstacles are severed; 3. great in status, because they are great arhats; 4. great in virtue, as stated in the sūtra; 5. great in fame, their reputation being heard far and wide; 6. great in recognition, being known by great people and the great assembly. In Sanskrit it is *bhikṣu*, erroneously called *biqiu*; possessing five meanings, it is therefore not translated: 1. called frightening Māra, because when one first renounces household life, Māra's palace trembles; 2. called mendicant, because having renounced household life, one sustains oneself by begging for food; 3. called pure upholders of precepts, because gradually entering the monastic assembly, one ought to uphold the precepts; 4. called pure livelihood, because having received the precepts, the three activities one generates are motivated by non-greed and do not rely on greed or wrong livelihood; 5. called destroying evil, because gradually relying on the noble path, one eliminates defilements.