維摩經略疏 6.103

6.103

From "Thus …" down to the Chapter on Inquiring after the Illness is the second major section, where the compiler of the sūtra maintained brevity, or perhaps the transmission of the sūtra was not exhaustive. As for the matter of all the bodhisattvas being commissioned and each declining as incompetent: if based on the praise of virtues, there were thirty-two thousand; if based on those who followed Mañjuśrī into the room, it says only eight thousand—one cannot definitively determine this. Merely the words of the four bodhisattvas recounting their past rebukes already fill several sheets of paper. If the compiler of the sūtra were to recount in full what each of the various bodhisattvas stated, the text would run to several thousand sheets. That such a great assembly together heard the Tathāgata's endorsement all constitutes the meaning of the five kinds of benefit; how could this be relegated solely to the preface section?