On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c13.s2.5

v1.c13.s2.5

(辯眞論) or Truth-expounding Treatise. This Guṇaprabha, Yuang-chuang tells us, from being a very clever boy had grown up to be a man of great intellectual abilities, and of wide and varied learning. He had at first been a student of the Mahāyāna system, but before he had thoroughly comprehended the abstruse mysteries of that system, he was converted to the Hīnayāna by the perusal of a Vaibhāsha treatise. After this he composed several tens of treatises in refutation of the Mahāyāna principles, and in defence of the Hīnayāna tenets. He was also the author of some scores (several tens and more) of secular books: he set aside as wrong the standard treatises of his predecessors. But in his comprehensive study of the Buddhist canonical scriptures Guṇaprabha had experienced difficulties on above ten points, and of these his prolonged application did not bring any solution. Now among his contemporaries was an arhat named Devasena, who was in the habit of visiting the Tushita Paradise. This Devasena, by his supernatural powers, on one occasion took Guṇaprabha, at the request of the latter, up to the Tushita Paradise to have an interview with Maitreya Bodhisattva, and obtain from the Bodhisattva the solution of his spiritual difficulties. But when presented to Maitreya Guṇaprabha was too proud and conceited to give the Bodhisattva his due reverence, and accordingly Maitreya would not solve his difficulties. As Guṇaprabha remained stubborn in his self-conceit even after one or two unsuccessful visits, and as he would not be guided by the counsels of Devasena, the latter refused to take him any more into Maitreya's presence. Hereupon Guṇaprabha in angry disgust went into solitude in a forest, practised the "Penetration-developing samādhi", but, not having put away pride, he was unable to attain arhatship.