出三藏記集 8.54

8.54

此經梵本正文三萬五千偈。於此方言數減百萬言。今數出者一萬餘偈。如來去世。後人不量愚淺。抄略此經分作數分。隨意增損雜以世語。緣使違失本正。如乳之投水下。章言雖然猶勝餘經。足滿千倍。佛涅槃後初四十年。此經於閻浮提宣通流布。大明於世。四十年後隱沒於地。至正法欲滅餘八十年。乃得行世。雨大法雨。自是以後尋復隱沒。至于千載像教之末。雖有此經。人情薄淡無心敬信。遂使群邪競辯曠塞玄路。當知遺法將滅之相。

The Indic original of this sūtra consists of 35,000 gāthās. In the language of this land, the word count falls just short of a million words. What has now been translated is more than 10,000 gāthās. After the Tathāgata departed the world, later people, not measuring their foolish shallowness, abridged and summarized this sūtra, dividing it into several portions, adding and subtracting at will, and mixing it with worldly language, thereby causing it to deviate and lose its original correctness, like pouring milk into water. The subsequent chapter says that although this is so, it still surpasses other sūtras by a full thousandfold. During the first forty years after the Buddha's nirvāṇa, this sūtra was propagated and circulated throughout Jambudvīpa, shining brightly in the world. After forty years, it vanished underground. Only when eighty years remained before the True Dharma was about to perish was it able to circulate in the world and shower the great rain of the Dharma. From then on, it soon vanished again. Up to the end of the Semblance Teaching after a thousand years, although this sūtra exists, human sentiments are weak and lukewarm, without the mind to revere and believe it, thereby causing various heretics to dispute with eloquence and block the profound path—one should know that this is the sign that the bequeathed Dharma is about to perish.