無量壽經連義述文贊 1.7

1.7

Regarding the sūtra text: "with the great bhikṣus": The commentary states: Fifth, transmitting the audience. The sūtra texts differ: Bai Yan fully narrates three assemblies: 1. the śrāvaka assembly, namely "with a great assembly of disciples of one thousand two hundred and fifty people, five hundred bhikṣuṇīs, seven thousand upāsakas, and five hundred upāsikās"; 2. the bodhisattva assembly, namely "seventy nayutas of bodhisattvas"; 3. the devas assembly, namely "eight hundred thousand devaputras of the desire realm, seven hundred thousand devaputras of the form realm, sixty nayutas of Śubhakṛtsna devaputras, and one hundred million Brahmadevas". Zhi Qian designates only the śrāvaka assembly, namely "twelve thousand mahā-bhikṣu-saṃgha". Now Dharmarakṣa's sūtra briefly mentions the two assemblies of bhikṣus and bodhisattvas, and none of the rest. The reason for this presence or absence is simply that the translators' preferences varied between the extensive and the abridged, and the divergence arose from this. In explaining the transmitted audience, there are two: first, the śrāvaka assembly; second, the bodhisattva assembly. That the assemblies follow this sequence is also as explained before. The first also has five: this is first, indicating their practice. That is, as it says in the *Saddharmapuṇḍarīkopadeśa*: "Regarding the śrāvakas, they cultivate Hīnayāna practice and support their livelihoods by mendicancy and the like; their deportment is fixed and not like that of bodhisattvas, so they are named bhikṣus."