Triyāna

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Key Term	triyāna
Hover Popup Choices	Three Vehicles; three vehicles; theg gsum
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
Richard Barron's English Term	three spiritual approaches
Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term	three vehicles
Gyurme Dorje's English Term	three vehicles
Alternate Spellings	yānatraya
Term Type	Noun
Source Language	Sanskrit
Basic Meaning	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.
Has the Sense of	Three ways of arriving at enlightenment or traversing the path.
Did you know?	The ultimate goal of the Śrāvakayāna is the state of an arhat, while the ultimate goal of the Bodhisattvayāna is buddhahood.
Related Terms	Ekayāna
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.
Tshig mdzod Chen mo	nyan thos kyi theg pa/ rang rgyal gyi theg pa/ byang sems kyi theg pa ste gsum/

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.

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.

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.

The mainstream teachings and the early schools of Buddhism which primarily taught individual liberation through practice-focused renunciation and monasticism, considered lesser than the later movement of the Greater Vehicle (Mahāyāna), which professed enlightenment for all sentient beings and promoted compassion.

A person who has reached nirvāṇa by eliminating the three poisons of attachment, hatred and ignorance having followed the path of seeking individual liberation as a Śrāvaka or a Pratyekabuddha. An arhat, thus, is a person who has overcome the cause of rebirth in the cycle of existence and will not take an ordinary birth again.

The disciples of the Buddha who aspire to attain individual liberation or nirvāṇa. The final goal of the Hearers is to become an arhat, a state in which one has totally eliminated the inner problems of attachment, hatred and ignorance, the main causes for rebirth in this cycle of existence. There are four stages of a śrāvaka path including eight phases.