Abstract

Mahāyāna Buddhism is the major branch of Buddhism practiced in India, China, and East Asia. A signal characteristic of this form of Buddhism is its advocacy of the “doctrine of expedient means.” This doctrine, which makes its first official appearance in the third century of the Common Era in the Lotus Sūtra (hereafter “the Sūtra”), is supposed to account for the fact that Mahāyāna Buddhism expresses views about the nature of reality and the goals of Buddhist practice that are not reflected in earlier scriptures. In its famous “Parable of the Burning House,” the Sūtra argues for the view that the earlier teachings were not aligned with the final truth; their limitations were required by natural and unavoidable ..