The bodhisattva Varaprabha [Wonderful-Light Bodhisattva], the teacher of Dipamkara [Burning-Light Buddha], was Mañjuśrī in a previous life, meaning that a bodhisattva in the audience of the present buddha was, at least at one time, superior to this previous buddha. And the bodhisattva who is honored by the mainstream tradition as the future buddha, Maitreya, turns out to have been his least worthy disciple. The inversion of authority with which the Lotus Sūtra proclaims its priority here not only makes the best of bodhisattvas the least of bodhisattvas, but also explains what happened in the distant past to make it so. In Mañjuśrī’s response we also encounter the first instance of a device that occurs in many Mahāyāna sūtras but which is employed most famously, and most head-spinningly*, in the Lotus: self-reference. In this, the first chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, Mañjuśrī explains that in the distant past, the buddha Candrasūryapradipa [Sun-Moon-Light] taught the Lotus Sūtra.

*This is one of many, many reasons why this book gets only a Two-Star rating from me.