 From the mantric articulation of the Dharma emerge ten realms and their respective languages (of hell dwellers, hungry ghosts, animals, asuras, humans, celestial heaven dwellers, śrāvakas, pratyeka-buddhas, bodhisattvas, and buddhas). Each realm as an articulation of the Dharma, has its own “sounds-and-signs,” i.e., its own language, in accordance with a specific perspective corresponding to the degree of enlightenment and illusion of its inhabitants. But only the language of the highest, the most comprehensive realm, i.e., the realm of the Buddha, is identified with the “true word” (shingon, mantra), designating the Dharma as it is. The nine other languages are by contrast “illusory words” (mōgo). And yet they nevertheless do express the Dharma, each from its own relative and limited perspective. In this restricted sense, they are all mantras as well. For they take part in the cosmic text of the hosshin written in the same inter-referential interrelationships obtaining in all thing-events via the interplay of the same universal elements. The difference is that while the other languages are not conscious of their source, the most comprehensive language, the “sounds-and-signs” of the Buddha-realm, entails self-awareness of its mysterious origin.