維摩經略疏 1.5

1.5

Next, in explaining the entrance into the text, there are broadly five intentions: first, explaining that the translation of the sūtra is incomplete; second, briefly dividing the text; third, distinguishing the meaning of the buddha-land; fourth, explaining the chapter; fifth, properly entering the text. As for the first intention, among the five successive translations there are differences; we are now interpreting the Kumārajīva translation. Examining the meaning of the sūtra text, in the Western Lands it was still far more extensive. How do we know this? For instance, when the ten disciples were commanded, and likewise five hundred and even eight thousand [bodhisattvas], each declined as unable; the words of their inability did not arrive here in their entirety. Deducing from this, the scrolls of the sūtra must not have been few. Moreover, when Mañjuśrī entered the room to convey the Tathāgata's intent, his earnest solicitude was boundless, and the eight thousand bodhisattvas each explained their entrance through the gate; how could all these discussions comprise merely half a scroll? When it came to exiting the room and proceeding to the Āmrapālī Grove, where before the Tathāgata they expounded and distinguished the meaning of the buddha-land, with the lofty debates and exchanges expounded at that time, how could they have amounted to only a few sheets of sūtra text? My sense is that the living beings of Cīnasthāna possess narrow and inferior faculties, and were incapable of reading, reciting, receiving, and upholding it in its entirety; therefore, the abundant text was abridged, its essential structure was extracted to be transmitted in this land, and its meaning was preserved in brief.