The History of Buddhist Thought c23.12

c23.12

He further teaches beings according to whatever discipline they follow. More catholic than in the Lotus, he assumes the form of a Buddha, a Pratyekabuddha, or an arhat in order to teach, and even takes the forms of the Hindu gods, Maheśvara, etc., and preaches according to the doctrine of each. In the time of Viśvabhū Buddha he went to the realm of the rebel gods, the asuras, and consoled and converted them, and then to the dark land of the monsters, the yakshas and rākshasas. At his preaching “ some reached the fruit of Entering the Stream, some the fruit of Once-returner, some arhatship, some supreme enlightenment ”. Then he went to the gods of the Pure Abode in the form of a brahmin, where, after working a miracle, he declared, “ I am no god, but a man, and have become a bodhisattva, having compassion on the abandoned and wretched, and a teacher of the way of enlightenment.”