 The idea of the mantra, inherited from Indian Mantrayāna, occupies a significant position in Kūkai’s philosophy, which he elucidates in each of his Sanbu-sho and systematically and most comprehensively in his Shōjijissōgi. Mantras denote the reality of all dharmas (shohō) – the elemental constituents of reality – as themselves signifying the Dharma preached by the hosshin. (In Buddhism, the term dharma (hō) has many meanings, among which are the significances of truth itself and the elemental constituents of reality. When speaking of truth in its absolute sense as preached by Dainichi or as embodied in the dharmakāya (hosshin), I have been capitalizing Dharma, and when speaking of the elements that constitute reality, I leave dharma uncapitalized.) It represents the primordial speech of the Buddha Dainichi uttering and expositing the Dharma, taken in both its restricted human significance and its broader cosmic significance. That is, Dainichi’s sermon as a mantra in the broad sense means all phenomena in general as vibrations emanating from Dainichi’s eternal samadhi through the interplay of the elements via the three media of body, speech, and mind. All objects of the six senses as based upon those three media of visible and tangible forms, audible sounds, and thoughts, embody mantras as syllables uttered by Dainichi. And in its narrower sense the mantra takes the abbreviated verbal form of syllables written in the esoteric sūtras and uttered in esoteric ritual practice by the practitioner. That is, the mantras uttered by practitioners in ritual practice are to be taken as focused condensations of those cosmic vibrations in a particular sound. They are condensed manifestations of the content of Dainichi’s sermon, namely the truth of enlightenment, the Dharma.