In the development of Tendai Buddhism after Saichō, the implications of the nāga princess’s achievement were analyzed and disputed from many angles. Was the enlightenment to be realized “with this body” full or partial? To which of the stages of bodhisattva practice did it correspond? Was this kind of immediate realization accessible to all, or only to those who had cultivated practice in prior lifetimes? With some exceptions, later Tendai thinking shifted away from Saichō’s notion of attaining buddhahood within three lifetimes to an emphasis on direct realization of buddhahood in one’s present body. By Nichiren’s time, one strand of scholastic argument held that, at least in principle, even ordinary deluded persons might be able to access buddhahood at the beginning stages of faith and practice. Nichiren taught that embracing the Lotus Sūtra would make this a reality: “The Lotus Sūtra is the Buddha’s teaching and the Buddha’s wisdom. When one puts faith in even a single character or brushstroke, one immediately becomes a buddha in one’s present body. … , so [the Lotus Sūtra] transforms ordinary beings into buddhas. That is why it is called the wonderful dharma.”