THE FIVE PERIODS AND THE EIGHT TEACHINGS. One of the
most distinctive features of Tiantai thought was its classifica-
tion of the whole of S ́a ̄kyamuni’s teachings, that is, the whole
of Buddhism, into five periods, during which the Buddha is
said to have taught different doctrines to different classes of
persons. These teachings are further subdivided on the basis
of their contents.
The “five periods” (wushi) are (1) the Huayan (Skt.,
Avatamsaka) period, (2) the period of the Ehan, or Agamas,
also called the Luyuan (Skt., Mr:gada ̄va, “Deer Park”) period,
(3) the Fangdeng (Skt., Vaipulya) period, (4) the Boruo
(Skt., Prajña ̄pa ̄ramita ̄) period; and (5) the Fahua (Skt.,
Saddharmapun:d:ar ̄ıka) or Niepan (Skt., Nirva ̄n:a) period.
These take their names, as is obvious, from specific scriptures
or scriptural collections preached during these eras.
The “eight teachings” (bajiao) are two sets of four teach-
ings, so divided on the basis of the method and the type or
content of the teaching employed. The first four, the huayi,
or methods of conversion, are (1) the Sudden Teaching (dun-
jiao), (2) the Gradual Teachings (jianjiao), (3) the Secret
Teachings (bimi jiao), (4) the Indeterminate Teachings (bud-
ing jiao). The huafa teachings, that is, the teachings classified
on the basis of their contents, are (1) the Pit:aka Teachings
(zangjiao), (2) the Common Teachings (tungjiao), (3) the
Separate Teachings (biejiao), and (4) the Perfect Teachings
(yuanjiao).
When the Buddha S ́a ̄kyamuni was first enlightened he
is reputed to have sat silently for twenty-one days, during
which time various emanations from his body are said to
have taught several sermons that were later compiled into
one work, the Huayan jing (Avatam:saka Su ̄tra). During this
twenty-one-day period the Buddha presented the teachings
to advanced bodhisattvas, the only beings capable of compre-
hending their lofty contents.
After this twenty-one-day period, the Buddha then
spent the next twelve years preaching the H ̄ınaya ̄na teach-
ings to an audience that was incapable of understanding
the “sudden” presentation of the Maha ̄ya ̄na teachings of the
Huayan jing. These H ̄ınaya ̄na teachings, also called the
A ̄gamas (known in Pali as the Nika ̄yas), were first preached
in the Deer Park (Mr:gada ̄va) in the town of Sa ̄rna ̄th, a sub-
urb of Banaras, and were intended as an initial step in prepar-
ing his listeners for more advanced (i. e., Maha ̄ya ̄na) teach-
ings. These H ̄ınaya ̄na discourses were thus deemed
expedient (upa ̄ya) teachings designed to lead the Buddha’s
hearers eventually to greater understanding of the ultimate
or absolute level of the Truth.
Following this, the Buddha then preached for eight
years to those followers who had attained the fruit of the
H ̄ınaya ̄na teachings, that is, to arhats, in order to bring them
to the realization that arhatship does not represent the acme
of the religious career. Thus, the Buddha preached a large
number of Maha ̄ya ̄na sermons—represented by such scrip-
tures as the Weimo jing (Vimalak ̄ırtinirde ́sa), the Shengman
jing (S ́r ̄ıma ̄la ̄dev ̄ı Su ̄tra), the Jinguang ming jing
(Suvarn:aprabha ̄sa Su ̄tra)—which were taught, in the words
of Zhiyi, “to deprecate the partial and to praise the perfect;
to demolish the H ̄ınaya ̄na, and to praise the Maha ̄ya ̄na,” so
that the followers would “be ashamed of the H ̄ınaya ̄na and
long for the Maha ̄ya ̄na.”
Next, the Buddha taught the Prajña ̄pa ̄ramita ̄ (Perfec-
tion of Wisdom) teaching of the emptiness of all dharmas.
This twenty-two year period was followed by the presenta-
tion, for the first time since the teachings of the Huayan jing,
of the absolute truth: For the next eight years the Buddha
taught the Lotus Sutra. As the Buddha was about to die, his
spent his last day and night preaching the Maha ̄parinirva ̄n:a
Su ̄tra, the Niepan jing. In this teaching he emphasized that
all beings have the Buddha nature, or the potential to be-
come fully enlightened Buddhas, thus converting those who
had remained unswayed by the preaching of the Lotus Sutra.
In order to remove the delusions of those “of weak capacities
among later generations” who would come to have the “false
view of extinction and annihilation,” he stressed the impor-
tance of the Vinaya and its precepts for the moral life, and
taught the eternal existence of the Buddha. Because the mes-
sage and the approximate time period of the preaching of the
Lotus Sutra and the Maha ̄parinirva ̄n:a Su ̄tra were the same,
these two scriptures were said to make up a single era.
Zhiyi did not assign any specific number of years to each
of these periods; these were first added to this scheme in the
early thirteenth century by the scholar-monk Yuansui in his
Sijiaoyi beishi (Zokuzo ̄kyo ̄ 2.7.1). This identification with a
specific number of years for each period became standard in
Tiantai circles, although it was criticized by Zhixu (in his
Jiaoguan kangzong), the Japanese master Sho ̄shin (in the
Hokkegengi shiki), and by the seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century Japanese masters Fujaku and Hotan.
Of the four methods of conversion, the Sudden Teach-
ing is identified with the Huayan period and the Gradual
Teachings with the second, third, and fourth periods. The
Secret Teachings are those in which one group of persons is
taught the Sudden Teaching and another group is taught a
Gradual Teaching, yet neither group realizes that the other
has received a different presentation of the teachings. Hence,
they are termed “secret [and indeterminate].” But should
these two groups realize that each is receiving a different
teaching and a different type of spiritual benefit, then the
teachings are termed the “[revealed] indeterminate teach-
ings.” No specific scriptures are assigned to these last two cat-
egories.
The classification of the teachings according to their
contents begins with the Pit:aka Teachings, a synonym for
the H ̄ınaya ̄na. In this teaching the Four Noble Truths are
taught differently for the ́sra ̄vakas, prateyekabuddhas, and bo-
dhisattvas. Then the Four Truths are taught with respect to
emptiness and nonarising to these three categories of follow-
ers equally. This is termed the Common Teaching. When
an unlimited number of Four Truths are taught only toTIANTAI 9177