 Vasubandhu’s response to his internal objector is to explain that the passages in question need to be understood as spoken with a “special intention” (abhiprāya—on which, see Broido 1985, Collier 1998 and Tzohar 2018). Furthermore, in addition to defending the idea of reinterpreting scripture in general, Vasubandhu defends the act of reinterpretation in this case. In fact, we may distinguish four separate elements of the argument: (1) Vasubandhu explains the Buddha’s general practice of speaking words that are not technically true, but are beneficial to his listeners. (2) He proves that such interpretations are sometimes necessary, by providing two passages that without such a reading would prove the Buddha to have contradicted himself. (3) He provides an explanation of the Buddha’s “special intention” in the passage under discussion—that is, he declares what the Buddha actually believes on the topic. And, (4) he suggests why, in this case, the Buddha might have chosen to speak the words he did, instead of simply saying what he really believed.