[Tao-sheng’s commentary] has extraordinary historical value. As the first commentary ever written on the Lotus, a work that itself was to become an increasingly important scripture in East Asia, it set many patterns for later commentators as well as founders of the Chinese Buddhist schools. Most likely, [this commentary] is the first exegetical commentary in a full-fledged form in Chinese Buddhism. In that respect, it is probable that the work had a far-reaching impact beyond the area circumscribed by the Lotus, whether individual writers realized or acknowledged it.

The [commentary] naturally had a considerable effect on the interpretation of the Lotus. The fact that Tao-sheng attached such importance to the scripture by writing a commentary foreshadows the rise of the Lotus as a basic text in the Chinese Buddhist tradition. The Lotus emerged as one of the most influential of the scriptures of Mahāyāna Buddhism.

Tao-sheng’s attempt at schematization and rationalization of the Buddha’s diverse, if not contradictory, doctrines under a single teaching program in four units long prefigures the p’an-chiao systems of the T’ien-t’ai and Hua-yen doctrines. This rationalization is linked closely with the motif of diversity in unity, which was to be stressed especially by the T’ien-t’ai syncretists. As for the p’an-chaio [ the Chinese systems of doctrinal classification], the T’ien-t’ai and the Hua-yen Buddhists owed Tao-sheng more than the general idea of it. In their p’an-chiao schemas are found the two components, sudden and gradual teachings, for whose conception, as fully seen in the [commentary], Tao-sheng was primarily responsible. Thus one may say that the essence of Tao-sheng’s understanding regarding the Lotus found its way into some of the more important theoretical works in Chinese Buddhism.