"Three carts." A metaphor of the Lotus Sutra 法华经， from the story of the 'burning house，' which is as follows: Some chi^dren are playing in a house， unaware that it is on fire. Their father induces them to come out by telling them that there are three carts outside， a goat-drawn cart， a deer-drawn cart and an oxcart. When they come out， all there really is， is a great white oxcart. These three carts are metaphors for the /sra^vaka 声闻 vehicle， the pratyekabuddha 缘觉 vehicle， and the bodhisattva vehicle. This story is told in order to explain that although there are "lesser vehicle" and "greater vehicle" in Buddhist teachings， in the final analysis， they are all methods aimed at the same enlightenment. The 'burning house' represents the deluded world of human beings. The chi^dren are the practitioners of the three vehicles. The goat cart represents the /sra^vaka vehicle， the deer cart represents the pratyekabuddha vehicle， and the ox cart represents the bodhisattva vehicle. When the chi^dren have been induced to come out of the house， the large identical white ox carts are prepared outside the gate to give to each chi^d. These are metaphors for the great compassion of the Buddha as he discards his expedient means and returns the practitioners to the true single Buddha vehicle. Students of the Lotus Sutra in China were divided into two main groups: one that considered the expedient ox cart and the （fourth） great white ox cart to be the same （therefore positing three vehicles）. These were mainly the Faxiang 法相 and Sanlun 三论 schools. The other group， the "four vehicle thinkers" （Hua-yen 华严， T'ien-t'ai） 天台 maintained that the expedient ox cart and the great white ox cart are different. That is， the three vehicle thinkers consider the bodhisattva vehicle and the Buddha vehicle to be the same， while the four vehicle thinkers considered them to be different.