provisional Mahayana teachings ［権大乗教］ ( gon-daijō-kyō): The Mahayana teachings expounded as a means to lead people to the true Mahayana teaching, or the Lotus Sutra, which fully reveals Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment. Provisional Mahayana teachings reveal only partial aspects of the truth to which the Buddha was awakened. In his classification of Shakyamuni’s teachings into five periods, T’ien-t’ai (538–597) termed the teachings of the Flower Garland, Correct and Equal, and Wisdom periods provisional Mahayana, and the teachings of the Lotus and Nirvana period true Mahayana.