(5) After hearing the Buddha expound the Dharma, Maitreya said:

“World Honoured One, I have not heard all this before. As you have said, I shall keep from these evils and uphold the Dharma of supreme enlightenment which the Tathagata has collected during countless aeons. In future, if there are virtuous men and women who seek for Mahayana, I shall see to it that this sutra will be placed in their hands, and shall use transcendental power to make them remember it so that they can receive, keep, read, recite and proclaim it widely.

(6) “World Honoured One, in the coming Dharma ending age, if there are those who can receive, keep, read and recite this sutra and expound it widely, they will do so under the influence of my transcendental power.”

(1) Thereupon, Sakra who was in the assembly, said to the Buddha:

“World Honoured One, although I have listened to hundreds and thousands of sutras expounded by you and Manjusri, I did not hear of this inconceivable sutra of supramundane sovereign power and absolute reality. As I understand from your present preaching, if living beings listening to the Dharma of this sutra, believe, understand, receive, uphold, read and recite it, they will surely realize this Dharma. How much more so if someone practices it as expounded; he will shut all doors to evil destinies and will open up all doors to blessing; will win the Buddha’s perfection; will overcome heresy; destroy the demons; cultivate bodhi; set up a place of enlightenment (bodhimandala) and follow in the Tathagata’s footsteps.

(4) “Therefore, Sakra, if a virtuous man or woman receives, keeps, reads, recites and reveres this sutra, such an attitude is equal to making offering to past, future and present Buddhas. Sakra, if the great chiliocosm were full of countless Tathagatas as many as the sugar canes, bamboos, reeds, recites grains and hemp seeds in its fields; and if a virtuous man or woman who has passed either a whole aeon or decreasing kalpa to revere, honour, praise, serve and make offerings to these Buddhas, and then after their nirvana (death) should build with relics from their bodies a seven-gemmed stupa as large as the four deva-heavens (put together) and of a height reaching the Brahma heaven with a majestic spire, to which he or she will make offerings of flowers, incense, strings of precious stones, banners and melodious music, during either a whole kalpa or in a decreasing one, Sakra, what do you think of his or her merits? Are they many?”