Buddhist Doctrinal Classification
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Buddhist Doctrinal Classification refers to various systems used by Mahāyāna Buddhist traditions to classify and organize the numerous texts and teachings that have developed over the history of Buddhism. According to buddhologist Peter Gregory, these classification systems fulfill three interwoven roles for Buddhist traditions: hermeneutical, sectarian, and soteriological. From an hermeneutical standpoint, they function as a method of organizing Buddhist texts both chronologically and hierarchically, thereby producing a doctrinal structure that is internally coherent and logically consistent. In its sectarian application, different Buddhist schools evaluate and order scriptures based on their own doctrinal priorities, using this to legitimize their specific traditions. From a soteriological perspective, classification schemas map out a graded path of spiritual development, wherein the practitioner’s insight evolves from basic teachings toward the most advanced and profound realizations.
One of the earliest such systems was the "Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma" (Sanskrit: tridharmacakra-pravartana, Tibetan: chos kyi 'khor lo gsum), an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist framework for classifying and understanding the teachings of the Buddhist Sūtras and the teachings of Buddha Śākyamuni. This classification system first appears in the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and in the works of the Yogācāra school. According to the three turnings schema, the Buddha's first sermons, as recorded in the Tripiṭaka of early Buddhist schools, constitute the "first turning" (which include all śrāvakayāna texts). The sūtras which focus on the doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā) like the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra corpus, are considered to comprise the "second turning" (which in this schema is considered provisional), and the sūtras which teach Yogācāra themes (especially the three natures doctrine), like the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, comprise the final and ultimate "third turning".
This and other similar classification systems later became prevalent in various modified forms in Tibetan Buddhism as well as in East Asian Buddhism. In East Asian Buddhism, doctrinal classification systems, called "panjiào" (判教), were developed in nearly all major Chinese Buddhist schools. Tibetan Buddhism generally uses the term "classification of tenets" (Sanskrit: siddhānta, Tibetan: grub mtha'), which is also a name for a whole genre of literature that focuses on this topic.