Long before the emergence of Japanese Taimitsu, or even of esoteric Buddhism in East Asia, attempts had been made to identify Śākyamuni with the Buddha Vairocana, whose name is transliterated in Chinese versions of the sūtras as either Lu-che-na (Jpn. Rushana) or P’i-lu-che-na (Birushana). Such identifications begin in the sūtra literature. The sixty-fascicle Hua-yen ching says that the names “Śākyamuni ” and “Vairocana” refer to the same Buddha. The Fo-shuo kuan P’u-hsien P’u-sa hsing-fa Ching (Sutra of the Buddha’s preaching on the method of contemplating Bodhisattva Samantabhadra), the capping sūtra to the Lotus, reads, “At that time the voice in space will speak these words [to the meditator]: ‘Śākyamuni is called Vairocana Pervading All Places, and that Buddha’s dwelling place is called Ever-Tranquil Light. The Fan-wang ching presents Vairocana as manifesting individual Śākyamuni Buddhas as his emanations in billions of worlds. Because he is said to have attained these powers as the reward of long efforts in cultivation, Vairocana in this depiction may properly be regarded as a recompense body (saṃbhogakāya, hōjin)—the wisdom and supernatural attainments of a Buddha achieved through practice, imagined as a subtle body.]

Chinese commentators advanced various theories about the relationship of these Buddhas, often in connection with discussions about the various kinds of “bodies” that Buddhas were said to possess. Chih-i, for example, citing various sources, identified P’i-lu-che-na as the Dharma body, Lu-che-na as the recompense body, and Śākyamuni as the manifested body—noting, however, that the three bodies were inseparable. Elsewhere, in a dynamic synthesis, he interpreted Śākyamuni Buddha of the “Fathoming the Lifespan” chapter as embodying all three bodies in one. When the Buddha’s wisdom grasps the ultimate reality, that which is realized is the Dharma body; and the wisdom that realizes it is the recompense body. For the sake of living beings, this wisdom manifests itself in physical form as human Buddha who teaches in the world; this is the manifested body. Since the recompense body both realizes the truth that is the Dharma body and responds to aspirations of the beings in the form of the manifested body, Chih-i regarded it as central. However, he also rejected any notion of hierarchy among the three bodies, denying that one can be seen as prior to the others. (Page 25-26)