Ancient Wisdom - also known in esoteric Buddhism

The Three Vestures. - "The stream is crossed. Tis true thou hast a right to Dharmakaya vesture; but Sambhogakaya is greater than a Nirvani, and greater still is a Nirmanakaya - the Buddha of Compassion." - Voice of the Silence, p. 97.
"The three Buddhic bodies or forms are styled: Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya, Dharmakaya.
The first is that ethereal form which one would assume when leaving his physical he would appear in his astral body - having in addition all the knowledge of an Adept. The Bodhisattva develops it in himself as he proceeds on the path. Having reached the goal and refused its fruition, he remains on earth, as an Adept; and when he dies, instead of going into Nirvana, he remains in that glorious body he has woven for himself, invisible to uninitiated mankind, to watch over and protect it.
Sambhogakaya is the same, but with the additional luster of three perfections, one of which is entire obliteration of all earthly concerns.

The Dharmakaya body is that of complete Buddha, i.e, no body at all, but an ideal breath; consciousness merged in the universal consciousness, or soul devoid of every attribute. Once a Dharmakaya, an Adept or Buddha leaves behind every possible relation with, or thought for, this earth. Thus to be enabled to help humanity, an Adept who has won the right to Nirvana, 'renounces the Dharmakaya body' in mystic parlance; keeps, of the Sambhogakaya, only the great and complete knowledge, and remains in his Nirmanakaya. The esoteric school teaches that Gautama, Buddha with several of his Arhats, is such a Nirmanakaya, higher than whom, on account of his great renunciation and sacrifice for mankind, there is none known."- Voice of the Silence, p. 98.