That preserving the teachings was an important issue for the Saṃgha can be gauged from the references to dhamma-dhara (dharma-dhara) and dhamma-kathika (dharma-kathika) in Buddhist writings. However, Mahayana, which combined in the bodhisattva way the self-benefiting practice of preserving the correct Dharma and the other-benefiting practice of the propagation of the sutras, called the preacher who bore that mission the dharma-bhāṇaka. Why different terms were used is of considerable interest.

We have seen already that the bhāṇaka, as a memorizer and reciter of sacred works, had from old been counted as a type of musician, and that his existence is confirmed by dedicatory inscriptions at Sāñcī and Bhārhut. Around the second century BCE the bhāṇaka came to be connected with stupas, performing offerings in praise of the Buddha, reciting the sutras, and conducting sermons, for the benefit of visiting lay pilgrims. At that time (the period of sectarian Buddhism) the Theravāda sect laid claim to being the orthodox preserver of the teachings, and paid no heed to the bhāṇaka. It was the humble bhāṇaka, though, whom the Mahayana sutras referred to as a bodhisattva and gave the mission of propagating the true Dharma. Therefore it is not impossible to find in the bhāṇaka of that period certain evidence for one source of Mahayana Buddhism.

While the Mahayana sutras referred to the preserver of the true Dharma as bhāṇaka, they used the terms dharma-dhara and dharma-kathika to indicate those who considered themselves to be orthodox preservers of the teachings. Most such references are found in the oldest parts of the Mahayana sutras; the newer parts invariably use dharma-bhāṇaka. In the Lotus Sutra, for example, the use of dharma-dhara and dharma-kathika is confined to the section before “A Teacher of the Law,” whereas dharma-bhāṇaka is used mainly in the chapters after that. If we allow that the chapter “A Teacher of the Law” marks a temporal shift in the formation of the Lotus Sutra, we may consider that the use of dharma-dhara, dharma-kathika, and dharma-bhāṇaka likewise belongs to specific periods of time. As discussed earlier, the chapters before “A Teacher of the Law” encouraged the veneration of relic stupas, but those after it discouraged that practice and recommended instead constructing caityas containing verses from the scriptures. To reiterate, although the Lotus Sutra called transmitters of the teachings by the general terms dharma-dhara and dharma-kathika, the sutra gave the special task of propagating itself to the dharma-bhāṇaka, as a Mahayana bodhisattva.