 It is interesting to note that the celestial buddhas and the historical buddha (Śakyamuni) are here included as themselves forms of the hosshin, when in the traditional trikāya doctrine of Mahāyāna, they were distinguished from the hosshin, which in turn was seen as abstract and impersonal. Furthermore, according to this doctrine of the four forms of the hosshin, it is not only the celestial buddhas in the heavens and the historical buddha on earth who preach, but all four forms. From Kūkai’s esoteric standpoint, the hosshin even in its samadhic self-enjoyment is preaching the Dharma in its cosmic monologue – for its very embodiment is the cosmos itself so that its samadhic experiencing of the Dharma permeates everywhere and everywhen. Simply put, Dainichi as the hosshin and as the personification of the Dharma concretely embodied in the cosmos, is directly preaching the Dharma to the world via his omni-presencing being. And while in the broader sense the hosshin is thus preaching via the cosmos, in the narrower sense its preaching is manifest in the teachings of esoteric Buddhism itself. On the other hand the doctrines of what Kūkai classified as exoteric are traced to either what the historical buddha, Śakyamuni, preached or what the celestial buddhas are preaching in the heavenly dimensions. Insofar as they themselves are embodiments of the hosshin, what they preach are indirectly teachings of the hosshin. But their teachings are provisional, relative only to the comprehension of their audience and the circumstance of time and place wherein they are preached. Kūkai claims, however, that through training in Shingon esotericism, one can receive the teachings of the hosshin directly – that is, receive the timeless and absolute, cosmic and holistic, truth of the Dharma in its very embodiment. This was a radical and heterodox claim at the time since the teaching common to all orthodox Buddhist schools was that the sūtras can all be traced back to the preachings of Śakyamuni and this lineage is what legitimated their use of the sūtras. But for Kūkai, the historical Buddha was but one manifestation of the cosmic Buddha, Dainichi, who embodies the truth (Dharma, hō) it preaches as the hosshin.