The transmission concerning “the three bodies of the perfect teaching” (engyō sanjin) clarifies the Buddha of the “Fathoming the Lifespan” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra. This Buddha is said to possess all three kinds of Buddha body (trikāya, sanjin): the manifested body (nirmāṇakāya, ōjin), or physical person of the Buddha who appears in this world; the recompense body (saṃbhogakāya, hōjin), or the wisdom the Buddha has attained through practice, conceived of as a subtle “body”; and the Dharma body (dharmakāya, hosshin), or the Buddha as personification of ultimate truth. These three “bodies” originally represented attempts to organize different concepts of the Buddha, or to explain the differences among various Buddhas appearing in the sūtras. For example, Śākyamuni who appeared in this world was considered a Buddha in the manifested-body aspect; Amitābha, a Buddha in the recompense-body aspect; and Mahāvairocana, a Buddha in the Dharma-body aspect. Chih-i, however, interpreted these three bodies as the attributes of a single, original Buddha, the Śākyamuni of the sixteenth chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, enlightened since countless dust-particle kalpas ago. For Chih-i, the unity of the three was mediated by the recompense body, which he saw as central. (Page 184-185)