open to the same charge of egoism as the Hinayana scheme of salvation but is much easier and may lead to the abandonment of religious effort.  And the Hindu, who above all things likes to busy himself with his own salvation, does not take kindly to these expedients.  Numerous deities promise a long spell of heaven as a reward for the mere utterance of their names,[88] yet the believer continues to labour earnestly in ceremonies or meditation.  It would be interesting to know whether this doctrine of salvation by the utterance of a single name or prayer originated among Buddhists or Brahmans.  In any case it is closely related to old ideas about the magic power of Vedic verses.

The five Jinas and other supernatural personages are often regarded as manifestations of a single Buddha-force and at last this force is personified as Adi-Buddha.[89] This admittedly theistic form of Buddhism is late and is recorded from Nepal, Tibet (in the Kalacakra system) and Java, a distribution which implies that it was exported from Bengal.[90] But another form in which the Buddha-force is impersonal and analogous to the Parabrahma of the Vedanta is much older.  Yet when this philosophic idea is expressed in popular language it comes very near to Theism.  As Kern has pointed out, Buddha is not called Deva or Isvara in the Lotus simply because he is above such beings.  He declares that he has existed and will exist for incalculable ages and has preached and will preach in innumerable millions of worlds.  His birth here and his nirvana are illusory, kindly devices which may help weak disciples but do not mark the real beginning and end of his activity.  This implies a view of Buddha’s personality which is more precisely defined in the doctrine known as Trikaya or the three bodies[91] and expounded in the Mahayana-sutralankara, the Awakening of Faith, the Suvarna-prabhasa sutra[92] and many other works.  It may be stated dogmatically as follows, but it assumes somewhat divergent forms according as it is treated theologically or metaphysically.

A Buddha has three bodies or forms of existence.  The first is the Dharma-kaya, which is the essence of all Buddhas.  It is true knowledge or Bodhi.  It may also be described as Nirvana and also as the one permanent reality underlying all phenomena and all individuals.  The second is the Sambhoga-kaya, or body of enjoyment, that is to say the radiant and superhuman form in which Buddhas appear in their paradises or when otherwise manifesting themselves in celestial splendour.  The third is the Nirmana-kaya, or the body of transformation, that is to say the human form worn by Sakyamuni or any other Buddha and regarded as a transformation of his true nature and almost a distortion, because it is so partial and inadequate an expression of it.  Later theology regards Amitabha, Amitayus and Sakyamuni as a series corresponding to the three bodies.  Amitabha does not really express the whole Dharma-kaya, which is incapable of personification,