Day 20 completes Chapter 15, The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground, and concludes the Fifth Volume of the Lotus Sutra

Maitreya’s questions concerning the Bodhisattvas from Underground:

These Bodhisattvas have
Great powers, virtues and energy.
Who expounded the Dharma to them? Who taught them?
Who qualified them to attain [perfect enlightenment]?

Under whom did they begin to aspire for enlightenment?
What teaching of the Buddha did they extol?
What sūtra did they keep and practice?
What teaching of the Buddha did they study?

And Śākyamuni’s answer:

I once sat under the Bodhi-tree
In the City of Gayā,
Attained perfect enlightenment,
And turned the wheel of the unsurpassed Dharma.

Then I taught them,
And caused them to aspire for enlightenment.
Now they do not falter [in seeking enlightenment].
They will be able to become Buddhas.

My words are true.
Believe me with all your hearts!
I have been teaching them
Since the remotest past.

But Maitreya doesn’t understand:

World-Honored One! When you, the Tathāgata, were a crown prince, you left the palace of the Śākyas, sat at the place of enlightenment not far from the City of Gayā, and attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. It is only forty and odd years since then.

World-Honored One! How did you do these great deeds of the Buddha in such a short time? Did you teach these great, innumerable Bodhisattvas, and qualify them to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi by your powers or by your merits? …

World-Honored One! It is difficult for anyone in the world to believe this. It is as difficult as to believe a handsome, black-haired man twenty-five years old who points to men a hundred years old and says, ‘They are my sons,’ or as to believe men a hundred years old who point to a young man and say, ‘This is our father. He brought us up.’ You are like the young man. It is not long since you attained enlightenment. But it is many thousands of billions of kalpas since the great multitude of these Bodhisattvas began to practice the Way strenuously in order to attain the enlightenment of the Buddha.

And in gāthās:

It is not long
Since you renounced the family of the Śākyas
And sat under the Bodhi-tree
Near Gayā.

These sons of yours are innumerable.
They have practiced
The way to Buddhahood for a long time.
They have supernatural powers and the power of wisdom.

They have studied the Way of Bodhisattvas well.
They are not defiled by worldliness
Just as the lotus-flower
Is not defiled by water.
They sprang up from underground,
And are now standing before you respectfully.
This is difficult to understand.
How can we believe this?

You attained enlightenment quite recently.
But you have done so many things.
Remove our doubts!
Explain all this as it is!