of Jesus Christ "in the days of King Herod" being the last and most perfect one. Similarly, the Buddhists will tell us that there have been many Incarnations of Buddha in the Nirmanakaya, and they will instance Sakyamuni as the most perfect instance of this. The Shinshu believer will add another instance of an incarnation, which he holds to have been more perfect than that of Sakyamuni, the Incarnation of Buddha as 'very man' in the person of Hozo Biku [**], such as He was in the days of His humiliation, before He had attained to that glory which became His when He had fulfilled His Vow for the Salvation of Mankind and became Namu Amida Butsu.

Between the Dharmakaya, the Hoben Hosshin, of Amida the Supreme, and the Nirmanakaya or Ojin of Hozo Biku, is placed Sambhoga Kaya--Hoshin (#), the so-called "Body of Compensation." It is the Body in which Amida-Butsu, the glorified Saviour, who has worked out man's salvation, is now set forth as the personal object of worship for the Shinshu believer. It is, as it were, a counterpart that glorified Humanity in which we believe that Our Risen Saviour Jesus Christ, having passed into the heavens, is sitting in His Mediatiorial Kingdom

[paragraph continues] "at the right hand of God," (this term being evidently a hoben, a figurative expression intended to be an "accommodation" of a great truth to our finite human language). [**]

Thus we may see that Amida is conceived of, in one aspect, as a Being whose Substance is absolute and unconditioned (zettaisha), in another, as an idealized, glorified, Being (ri-butsu), in another, as an actual tangible, material, Buddha, in that Incarnation which the Shinshu consider to be historical. He has three bodies, the one, absolute, invisible, intangible, only to be seen by the eye of Faith; another, fleshly, human, the body of Hozo Biku whilst on earth, the third, spiritualized matter, glorified and exalted. The Body of Hozo Biku was material, but it has passed away, the Compensation Body of Amida Butsu is localized in Paradise, and definitely distinct, though immaterial. The Dharmakaya of the Absolute is invisible, intangible, formless, and can only be apprehended when it veils itself under material substances behind which it dwells among us with a real but purely spiritual Presence. It requires but little ingenuity to see the important bearing which all this has on some of the most vital beliefs of Christianity.

Footnotes

^85:* Of course, Creation is a word the Buddhist cannot use in its strictest sense. To him, as to the ancient Gnostic, there is no Creation, but rather a Development and gradual manifestation of God and of Material Phenomena. In writing this section I have made much use of the passages from older writers given in Shinshu Seikun pp. 390-400.