The three treasures are Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.
Towards the end of his life, the Buddha said to his disciples “My true body is my teachings“
Out of this arose the idea of the dharmakaya, the Universal Body of the Buddha, and then, later, the Bliss Body. As ‘buddha’ inflated, ‘sangha’ shrunk.
But there’s another way to look at it.
The Buddha’s teachings weren’t written down in his lifetime. They were held in the bodies and minds of the disciples who heard them. They were brought out by those disciples. That’s where the teachings arose. Without a sangha, there would have been no dharma. That’s where the teachings were embodied. And from there, outward, to everywhere.
And it is this body – the Sangha body, both mythical and flesh and blood – which keeps giving birth to new buddhas.