Tiantai or T'ien-t'ai (Chinese: 天台; pinyin: PRC Standard Mandarin: Tiāntāi, ROC Standard Mandarin: Tiāntái, Wu Taizhou dialect (Tiantai native language): Thiethei) is an East Asian Buddhist school of Mahayana that developed in sixth century China. The school emphasizes the Lotus Sutra's doctrine of the "One Vehicle" (ekayana) as well as Madhyamaka philosophy, particularly as articulated in the works of the fourth patriarch Zhiyi (538–597 CE). Brook Ziporyn states that Tiantai is "the earliest attempt at a thoroughgoing Sinitic reworking of the Indian Buddhist tradition." According to Paul Swanson, Tiantai Buddhism grew to become "one of the most influential Buddhist traditions in China and Japan."