The same tendency to look out on the actual world accounts for the view here taken of the Nirvana as a system of ultimate doctrine adapted to correct the faults of negligent and misguided monks and others. After the earlier instructions had been delivered, down to the period of the "Lotus of the Good Law," there were still some men who failed to comprehend the full sense of Buddha's teaching. To them it was necessary still to discourse on the true nature of Buddha, that they might learn what is "really permanent" (chen-c'hang), and so enter the Nirvana, As the farmer has the early and the late harvest, so Buddha, when the first sowing of instruction had been followed by the ripening and the harvest, proceeded to a later sowing and harvest. It was then that a multitude of disciples, high and low in attainment, came to see, as never before, the true nature of Tathagata, and to bear the fruit of a ripe experience. After their autumn harvesting and winter garnering, there was no more for them to do. Among them were those who advanced from the Prajna Paramita to the Fa-hwa (lotus), and others who, their perceptions still blunted, found the Fa-hwa beyond their reach, and were only capable of being reduced to a state of mental

and moral submission by the Nirvana. They find in the Nirvana doctrine that which enables them to see Buddha's nature.

The historian has his eye upon those monks of later times who like to read other books than those of Buddha himself, and cease to use the books of Buddha for their instruction. They learn to encourage injurious and destructive thoughts, even when under the control of Buddha's law. They shorten wisdom's life, and let go completely from their possession the "embodiment of the law" (fa-shen). It is for such backsliders that the doctrine of permanence was introduced. Its fulness and reality were to furnish them with a firm support. This was why, near the close of his life, Shakyamuni discoursed specially on the Nirvana before himself entering into that state of blissful extinction. By this means he is stated to have strengthened the authority of the monkish system of rules, and with it that of the three divisions of the Buddhist library.

We see the teaching of the Nirvana to be the doctrine of Buddha in his old age, when his experience was ripe. It was the result of his observation of the needs of the Buddhist community. It was the completing process in the development of doctrine, and was adapted to affect minds which remained unmoved under earlier and simpler forms of teaching.