"Truly thou hast spoken well, O brother Anuruddha. Neither is
there any conflict of opinion on the meaning of our religion. For
the Blessed One possesses three personalities, and every one of
them is of equal importance to us. 17
"There is the Dharma Kāya. There is the Nirmāna Kāya. There is
the Sambhoga Kāya. 18
"Buddha is the all-excellent truth, eternal, omnipresent, and
immutable. This is the Sambhoga Kāya which is in a state of
perfect bliss. 19
"Buddha is the all-loving teacher assuming the shape of the
beings whom he teaches. This is the Nirmāna Kāya, his
apparitional body. 20
"Buddha is the all-blessed dispensation of religion. He is the
spirit of the Sangha and the meaning of the commands which he has
left us in his sacred word, the Dharma. This is the Dharma Kāya,
the body of the most excellent law. 21
"If Buddha had not appeared to us as Gotama Sakyamuni, how could
we have the sacred traditions of his doctrine? And if the
generations to come did not have the sacred traditions preserved
in the Sangha, how could they know anything of the great
Sakyamuni? And neither we nor others would know anything about
the most excellent truth which is eternal, omnipresent, and
immutable. 22
"Let us then keep sacred and revere the traditions; let us keep
sacred the memory of Gotama Sakyamuni, so that people may find
the truth; for he whose spiritual eye is open will discover it,
and it is the same to every one who possesses the comprehension
of a Buddha to recognize it and to expound it." 23
Then the brethren decided to convene a synod in Rājagaha in order
to lay down the pure doctrines of the Blessed One, to collect and
collate the sacred writings, and to establish a canon which
should serve as a source of instruction for future generations. 24