“The Dispute over Buddha-nature” which arose at the beginning of the Tang Dynasty originated when Xuanzang, having returned from his pilgrimage to India, introduced to China the theory of the Five Natures through his translations of the Yogācārabhūmi and the Fodi jinglun. In this paper, I verify that Shenkai, Congfang, and Daoyin, who were viewed as adherents of the Chinese Weishi school by Enchin, accepted in part that those of Fixed nature of the Two Vehicles convert to the Great Vehicle. From this, I propose that the semantic domain of the designation “The Dispute over Buddha-nature” has a tendency not only to indicate those who took either “The Theory that all attain Buddhahood” or “The Theory that there are those who do not attain Buddhahood” as truth, but that it is a technical term which has a much wider range of function. The designation “The Dispute over Buddha-nature” is used also to include the understandings of those such as Shenkai, Congfang, and Daoyin.
