The "three vehicles" taught by the Mahayana 大乘 schools， which are three programs of practice that are considered to be suitable for different capacities of sentient beings （tri-ya^na）. These are the vehicles of /sra^vaka 声闻， pratyekabuddha 缘觉 and bodhisattva 菩萨. The first two of these are categorized by the Mahayana schools as lesser vehicles or "hi^naya^na 小乘" and are referred to as the "two vehicles 二乘." Mahayana texts such as the S/ri^ma^la^-su^tra 胜鬘经 and the Lotus Sutra 法华经 offer extensive analysis of the relative capacities of these three， with the Lotus Sutra asserting that all three vehicles are eventually subsumed by the single vehicle 一乘.