法苑珠林 30.31

30.31

According to the Fu fazang zhuan, the Buddha entrusted the saddharma to Mahākāśyapa, commanding him to protect and preserve it so that the celestial Māras, dragons, ghosts, and heretical kings and ministers would not disparage or destroy it. Having received the entrustment, he compiled the tripiṭaka and spread it among humans and devas. Kāśyapa in turn entrusted the Dharma to Ānanda, and thus it was transmitted in succession down to Siṃha, making twenty-five persons in all, every one of them a sage endowed with the six supernatural knowledges in Jambudvīpa. Mahākāśyapa is now within a cave on the western peak of the Vulture Peak, sitting in the concentration of cessation. Passing through five billion, six hundred and seventy million years, when the Buddha Maitreya descends, he will transmit the robe entrusted by the Buddha Śākyamuni, widely display divine transformations, and only then enter nirvāṇa.