Because the notion of universal buddhahood now seems so obvious to those familiar with the Mahāyāna, it is difficult to imagine how radical this declaration of a single vehicle would have been in its own time. Up until this point, in the mainstream tradition, the goal of the Buddhist path was to become an arhat. The achievement of buddhahood was far more difficult, and the path to buddhahood was far longer; only the rarest of individuals in a given cosmic age was capable of undertaking that task. The arhat’s path to nirvāṇa was shorter and easier. Furthermore, there was no need for many buddhas as long as the teaching of a single buddha remained known in the world; hence the idea that there is only one buddha in the world at a time. Here, the Buddha is therefore saying something new. While his disciples had thought that they were following the path of the two vehicles culminating in nirvāṇa, in reality, that was the Buddha’s “skillful means,” taught in order to guide them to the bodhisattva path. This revelation could not be ignored; Śākyamuni declares that those who claim to be arhats and yet do not accept that the buddhas “lead and inspire only bodhisattvas” are not true arhats, nor are they true disciples of the Buddha.

He further declares that those who claim to be arhats and do not aspire to buddhahood are arrogant. It is impossible that a true arhat should not accept this dharma. He makes an exception for those who might become arhats after his death; such individuals might not believe in the single buddha vehicle because, after the Buddha has passed into nirvāṇa, it will be difficult to find people who preserve, recite, and understand the Lotus Sūtra. We have here again a barb directed at the opponents of the Lotus Sūtra. At the time of the text’s composition, centuries after the Buddha’s death, there would have been those who denied its authenticity. The sūtra, setting itself in the final years of the Buddha’s life, explains that such people are merely ignorant of his true intent.