無量壽經優婆提舍願生偈註 1.3

1.3

This Upadeśa on the Sūtra of Immeasurable Life is indeed the ultimate reach of the Great Vehicle, the wind-blown vessel of non-retrogression! "Immeasurable Life" is the distinctive name of the Tathāgata of the Pure Land of Peace and Bliss. When Śākyamuni Buddha was in Rājagṛha and the realm of Śrāvastī, he expounded among the great assembly the adornment of merits of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life, thus taking the Buddha's name as the core subject of the sūtra. Later, the holy Bodhisattva Vasubandhu took to heart the teaching of the Tathāgata's great compassion, composed verses of aspiration for rebirth based on the sūtra, and further composed prose to explain them again.