Applied to the issue of distinguishing between medieval Tendai and Nichirenist versions of hongaku thought, however, the ri/ji distinction became not a contrasting of two modes of practice, as Nichiren had used the terms, but a distinction of theory and practice. An example concerned medieval Tendai versus Nichirenist readings of the “original Buddha” (honbutsu) of the sixteenth or “Fathoming the Lifespan of the Tathāgata” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, enlightened since the unimaginably remote past. For medieval Tendai thinkers, this Buddha was the “Tathāgata of original enlightenment” who is equated with the cosmos or dharma realm itself; the sūtra’s revelation of his “original attainment” of Buddhahood countless kalpas ago was no more than a revelation in principle (ri kenpon), a skillful means or metaphor to show that all beings are enlightened from the outset. Such an interpretation, the Nichiren scholars argued, reduced the eternal Buddha of the Lotus Sūtra to no more than an abstract Dharma body (Skt. dharmakāya, Jpn. hosshin) or truth as principle; in their reading, the “original attainment” was actual (ji kenpon) and emphasized the centrality, among the Buddha’s three bodies, of the “reward body” (sawbhogakāya, hōjin), the Buddha wisdom acquired through practice by which the Dharma is realized. Tendai original enlightenment thought was accordingly characterized as a mere theoretical, abstract statement that beings are inherently enlightened by nature (jinen hongaku), while Nichiren’s teaching was presented as the, actualization of inherent enlightenment through faith and practice (shikaku soku hon aku). (Page 58)