Triyāna

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Key Term	triyāna
In Tibetan Script	ཐེག་པ་གསུམ་
Wylie Tibetan Transliteration	theg pa gsum
Devanagari Sanskrit Script	त्रियान
Chinese Script	三乗
Chinese Pinyin	sānchéng
Japanese Transliteration	sanjō
Korean Transliteration	samsŭng
English Standard	three vehicles
Basic Meaning	In a Mahāyāna context the three vehicles are the śrāvakayāna, pratyekabuddhayāna, and bodhisattvayāna, which reference the three different types of Buddhist practitioners. However, in Tibetan Buddhism these can also reference the Hinayāna, Mahāyāna, and the Vajrayāna.
Definitions
Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism	See page 926: In Sanskrit, “three vehicles,” three different means taught in Buddhist soteriological literature of conveying sentient beings to liberation.

Commonly seen in a Mahāyāna context, the three vehicles are the Śrāvakayāna, Pratyekabuddhayāna, and Bodhisattvayāna, which reference the three different types of Buddhist practitioners. However, these three vehicles can also reference the three types of Buddhist teachings of the Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna (or Pāramitāyāna), and the Vajrayāna.

Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion.