Amitābha

by

Galen Amstutz

• LAST REVIEWED: 18 August 2021
• LAST MODIFIED: 31 August 2015
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195393521-0004

Premodern Era

Distinctive developments of Amitābha occurred in China (and subsequently in Japan) more than elsewhere in Asia. The history can be roughly divided into the first stage of implantation and ferment and the later stage of syncretism and settlement, which corresponds approximately to the evolution of imperial government in China. As discussed by Chen 2007, the Chinese made an active adaptation of the Indian tradition, including simplification. Nattier 2006 suggests that an aspect of this adaptation was a focus on the Amitāyus (“Unlimited Life”) deity. Meanwhile Mai 2009 makes an important argument that evidence for Amitābha popularization extends to types of evidence beyond texts alone. According to Velasco 1995 and Chappell 1976, popularization in the teacher Daochuo may have been associated with a more concretized idea of Amitābha’s Pure Land. In the priest Tanluan, Taoist elements were also admixed. Weinstein 1987 provides a short summary of Tang-period expansion. In the end, in any case, interpretations of the core Amitābha practice of reciting the Buddha’s name became multiple (Jones 2001).

• Chappell, David Wellington. “Tao-ch’o (562–645): A Pioneer of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism.” PhD diss., Yale University, 1976.

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  Daochuo became associated with a form of exclusivistic Amitābha orientation that understood Amitābha practices, which could be very simple, as the only way to undertake Buddhism in the contemporary age. However, this was not the dominant later mainstream Chinese attitude.

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• Chen, Shu-chen. “Cultural Change of Indian Pure Land Buddhist Teaching in Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism.” PhD diss., University of Virginia, 2007.

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  Indian Pure Land teaching originated from the concept of buddhānusmrti, in which practitioners yearned to re-encounter the Buddha. When the teaching was transmitted to China, however, the teaching was simplified because buddhānusmrti practice was predominantly interpreted as the recitation of Buddha Amitābha’s name (although Chan-oriented Chinese Buddhists have considered Pure Land as a mental construct only).

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• Corless, Roger J. “T’an-luan: Taoist Sage and Buddhist Bodhisattva.” In Buddhist and Taoist Practice in Medieval Chinese Society. Edited by David W. Chappell, 36–45. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987.

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  Tanluan was selected as a Pure Land master by the later Japanese innovator Shinran, but in his own time Tanluan’s thought mixed Buddhist with Taoist elements, as analyzed in this short study.

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• Jones, Charles B. “Toward a Typology of Nien-fo: A Study in Methods of Buddha-Invocation in Chinese Pure Land Buddhism.” Pacific World, 3d ser., 3 (Fall 2001): 219–239.

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  Research continues to complicate the historical variability of nembutsu understanding: in China it was one practice among many, involving a healing practice, or a graded path, or a nondual realization, or a complete path, or something subordinate of Chan meditation.

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• Mai, Cuong T. “Visualization Apocrypha and the Making of Buddhist Deity Cults in Early Medieval China: With Special Reference to the Cults of Amitābha, Maitreya, and Samantabhadra.” PhD diss., Indiana University, 2009.

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  Argues that between the 4th century and the 6th century, the worship of Amitābha in China became widespread and extremely varied without any organization led by elite scholar-monks. Thus, instead of looking to textual transmission, research should look to prayers for the dead inscribed on stone images, miracle tales, hagiographies, and apocrypha—all producing an alternative view of Pure Land prehistory, which was further related to the early medieval cults of the Buddhist deities Maitreya and Samantabhadra and their visualization traditions.

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• Nattier, Jan. “The Names of Amitābha/Amitāyus in Early Chinese Buddhist Translations (I).” Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University for the Academic Year 2005 9 (2006): 183–199.

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  The name of the Amitābha Buddha appears in very many Buddhist texts other than the three main Pure Land sutras. Technical philological study of such appearances in early Chinese translations confirms that Amitābha was understood in India as “Buddha of Limitless Light” and preceded any interpretation in terms of the name Amitāyus (“Limitless Life”), which was a later product of Chinese cultural interests. Part 2 appears in the Annual Report 2006, pp. 359–394.

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• Velasco, Katherine K. “The Transformation of the Pure Land in the Development of Lay Buddhist Practice in China.” Pacific World, new ser., 11 (1995): 226–279.

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  Broad historical survey, based on English-language sources, evaluating how the pressure to popularize Buddhism in China tended to push the Pure Land toward interpretation as an objective, ontologically existing goal, especially in the teacher Daochuo.

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• Weinstein, Stanley. “The Growth of Pure Land Buddhism.” In Buddhism under the T’ang. By Stanley Weinstein, 66–74. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

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  Brief summary of Tang-period expansion of Pure Land teaching.

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Shandao

The Pure Land–associated priest Shandao (b. 613–d. 681) commenting on the Pure Land Contemplation /Visualization Sutra stands out because he produced texts with ideas of practice that left openings for popular simplifications of Pure Land devotion, thus creating a basis for later developments in Japan in particular. The differing perspectives on Shandao that eventuated are illustrated by Pas 1995, which emphasizes the multivocal quality of Shandao’s ideas of practice, versus Ducor 1999, which defends the Japanese Jōdoshinshū reading involving oral recitation of the name of Amitābha. Against that background Haneda 1979 traces the core concept of “the inferior person” in Shandao. The translation work of Inagaki 1999 exemplifies Shandao’s text on contemplation of Amitābha. At the center of Shandao’s world remained the Contemplation/Visualization Sutra, with its distinctive composition (Silk 1997) and potential meanings (Orzech 2009).

• Ducor, Jérôme. “Shandao et Hōnen, à propos du livre de Julian F. Pas: Visions of Sukhāvatī.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 22.1 (1999): 93–163.

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  Critically responding to the scholarship of Pas, the author defends a traditional (especially Jōdoshinshū) interpretation of the claims for simple vocal nembutsu supposed to be made by the Chinese teacher Shandao. Excellent example of textual argumentation and polemics in a Pure Land context.

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• Haneda, Nobuo. “The Development of the Concept of ‘Prthagjana,’ Culminating in Shan-tao’s Pure Land Thought: The Pure Land Theory of Salvation of the Inferior.” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1979.

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  Traces the use of this Sanskrit term for the karmically inferior, from India up through the medieval Chinese teacher Shandao.

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• Inagaki, Hisao. “Shan-tao’s Exposition of the Method of Contemplation on Amida Buddha, Part 1.” Translated by Hisao Inagaki. Pacific World, 3d ser., 1 (1999): 77–89.

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  First of three units of translation of Shandao’s textual material describing contemplative or visualization practice on the Amitābha Buddha; additional units of the translation were published in the same journal in 2000 and 2001.

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• Orzech, Charles D. “A Tang Esoteric Manual for Rebirth in the Pure Land: Rites for Contemplation of and Offerings to Amitāyus Tathāgata.” In Path of No Path: Contemporary Studies in Pure Land Buddhism Honoring Roger Corless. Edited by Richard K. Payne, 31–55. Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2009.

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  The author examines a commentary on the Contemplation /Visualization Sutra as an example of a process in China in which nonesoteric texts were brought under the influence of esoteric Buddhism and adapted to esoteric ritual.

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• Pas, Julian F. Visions of Sukhāvatī: Shan-tao’s Commentary on the Kuan Wu-Liang-Shou-Fo Ching. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.

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  This is an extended study that emphasizes the complex Mahayana vision quest aspect of Shandao’s experience and engages in a polemic against the narrower interpretations guided by the Japanese Jōdoshinshū school that focus on recitation of the oral nembutsu formula common in Japan.

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• Silk, Jonathan A. “The Composition of the Guan Wuliangshoufo-Jing: Some Buddhist and Jaina Parallels to Its Narrative Frame.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 25.2 (1997): 181–256.

  DOI: 10.1023/A:1004291223455Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Discussion of the structure of the Contemplation/Visualization Sutra in terms of its narrative composition.

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Syncretism of Amitābha Buddhism and Chan

Chinese Buddhist thinkers have been historically fascinated and perhaps dominated by this-world-oriented quasi-monistic (mind-only, tathāgata-garbha) theories of knowledge and strongly brought that perspective to their philosophical interpretations of Amitābha thought, but the tension between the “monistic” and “dualistic” (i.e., deferral-oriented) ways of handling the Amitābha mythos remained the source of one of the main kinds of polemics in Amitābha history. As described by Chappell 1986, such frictions broke into the open only when a degree of Chinese sectarian consciousness appeared during the Tang period. In much conventional scholarship, the later relations promoted by prominent Chinese monastics between Amitābha and Chan have been described as syncretism (Shih 1992, Hsu 1979, Yü 1981). A contrary view, taken up aggressively by Sharf 2002, is that Pure Land and Chan were so completely congruent or co-practiced in Chinese monasteries that no distinction—and thus no syncretism—can be intelligible. At the theoretical level, however, the question of how to handle the idea of the “external” deferred Amitābha in a fundamentally monistic philosophical system continued (Hurvitz 1970), sometimes achieving a subtle resolution (Jones 2000), sometimes retaining residual tensions (Jones 2001 and Jones 2009).

• Chappell, David W. “From Dispute to Dual Cultivation: Pure Land Responses to Ch’an Critics.” In Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism. Edited by Peter N. Gregory, 163–198. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986.

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  Surveys polemical conflicts between Amitābha and Chan exponents that occurred at the beginning of the 8th century before they tended to be dissolved in the characteristic later Chinese mind-only discourse.

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• Hsu, Sung-peng. A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-Shan Te-Ch’ing. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979.

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  Hanshan was another prominent leader who is understood to have continued the tradition of combining Chan and Amitābha both in practice and in theory of knowledge.

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• Hurvitz, Leon. “Chu-hung’s One Mind of Pure Land and Ch’an Buddhism.” In Self and Society in Ming Thought. Edited by William Theodore de Bary, 451–479. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.

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  A presentation of the synthesis of Pure Land and Chan made by the major Ming-period Chinese monk Chu-hung on the basis of Chan of Chan theories of knowledge.

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• Jones, Charles B. “Mentally Constructing What Already Exists: The Pure Land Thought of Chan Master Jixing Chewu (際醒 徹悟), 1741–1810.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 23.1 (2000): 43–69.

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  Study of an early modern Chinese monastic writer exemplifying the convoluted ways in which a mind-only theory of knowledge and Amitābha conceptualizations could be combined.

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• Jones, Charles B. “Apologetic Strategies in Late Imperial Chinese Pure Land Buddhism.” Journal of Chinese Religions 29 (2001): 69–90.

  DOI: 10.1179/073776901804774677Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Argues that despite the strong conventional emphasis on harmony, an element of conflict between Chan and Amitābha teachings has persisted from the Ming period down to the present, which has stimulated a line of apologetics from Amitābha exponents. Sophisticated debates occurred between “literalist” and “mind-only” interpretations, with the discussions located within the frame of Tiantai and Huayan thought.

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• Jones, Charles B. “Yuan Hongdao and the Xifang Helun: Pure Land Theology in the Late Ming Dynasty.” In Path of No Path. Edited by Richard Payne, 89–126. Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2009.

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  Pioneering look at the life and work of Yuan (b. 1568–d. 1610), a long-neglected gentry writer who composed an influential, philosophically sophisticated apologetic Pure Land work Comprehensive Treatise on the West intended to counterbalance his idea of the misguided influence of Chan in his era. Engages the long-running Chan mind-only versus Western-direction pure land debate.

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• Sharf, Robert H. “On Pure Land Buddhism and Ch’an/Pure Land Syncretism in Medieval China.” T’oung Pao, 2d ser., 88, fasc. 4–5 (2002): 282–331.

  DOI: 10.1163/156853202100368398Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Argues that although there were Pure Land–identified teachers and an idea of a patriarchate in China, there is little evidence of anything like an independent or self-conscious Amitābha tradition as Japanese scholars have often claimed. Amitābha cosmology, soteriology, and ritual were always seamlessly interwoven in Chinese Buddhism in general and Chan monasticism in particular, so there can be no meaning to a concept of “synthesis” of Amitābha and Chan.

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• Shih, Heng-ching. The Syncretism of Ch’an and Pure Land Buddhism. New York: Peter Lang, 1992.

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  A treatment of Yongming with a conventional emphasis on him as a blender of Chan and Amitābha orientations, approached via the idea of a syncretism enabled by mind-only monism.

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• Yü, Chung-fang. The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-Hung and the Late Ming Synthesis. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.

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  Syncretization of Chan and Pure Land was allegedly intrinsic to the program of this famous late-Ming teacher and organizer.

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Aspects of Popular Practice

For most participants in Chinese Pure Land the issues were mainly practical and liturgical. Nianfo (often treated as vocal recitation) and deathbed ritual associated with Amitābha are presented in passages from Stevenson 1995a and Stevenson 1995b. Amstutz 1998 stressed that the relative openness of Amitābha practice, which allowed the formation of independent associations of nonmonastic believers and sometimes gave it a significant political quality. This was so much so, in fact, that Chinese monastic institutions sought to bring lay followers back closer to monasteries by offering them precept-taking opportunities (Getz 2005) or the image of a Amitābha patriarchate (Getz 1999), even though this idea of distinctive Pure Land lineage may have been largely fictive (Getz 2004).

• Amstutz, Galen. “The Politics of Independent Pure Land in China.” Journal of Chinese Religions 26 (1998): 21–50.

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  Highlights the role of independent nonmonastic Amitābha groups, which sometimes created a field of interests different from the interests (magic, centralized power, or social hierarchy) rooted in the classical renunciant model. Some of these groups claimed to transcend monk and lay categories.

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• Getz, Daniel A., Jr. “T’ien-t’ai Pure Land Societies and the Creation of the Pure Land Patriarchate.” In Buddhism in the Sung. Edited by Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. Getz Jr., 477–523. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999.

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  The idea of an Amitābha patriarchate was not entirely a Japanese conception, but was also created by the Chinese Tiantai school during the Southern Sung period as a way of recognizing and claiming authority and guidance over the lay Amitābha societies that began to flourish in the period.

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• Getz, Daniel. “Shengchang’s Pure Conduct Society and the Chinese Pure Land Patriarchate.” In Approaching the Land of Bliss: Religious Praxis in the Cult of Amitābha. Edited by Richard K. Payne and Kenneth K. Tanaka, 52–76. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.

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  Although there were claims and lists regarding the existence of a patriarchate of leading teachers who formed some kind of Amitābha lineage over time, this study of one of these medieval figures casts doubt on the existence of any truly autonomous Amitābha institution in China.

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• Getz, Daniel A. “Popular Religion and Pure Land in Song-Dynasty Tiantai Bodhisattva Precept Ordination Ceremonies.” In Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya: Essays Presented in Honor of Professor Stanley Weinstein. Edited by William M. Bodiford, 161–184. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.

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  Study of how, under the influence of Amitābha, monastic Buddhist institutions found ways to connect with lay people by including them in precept-taking ceremonies, thus expanding popular consciousness of the bodhisattva vocation.

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• Stevenson, Daniel B. “Pure Land Buddhist Worship and Meditation in China.” In Buddhism in Practice. Edited by Donald S. Lopez, 359–379. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995a.

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  Translations of three short passages about Amitābha practice together with an excellent prefatory overview about rituals of nianfo (mindful recollection of the Buddha, often understood as vocal recitation). Emphasizes that pure land was almost never an institutionally independent phenomenon.

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• Stevenson, Daniel B. “Death-Bed Testimonials of the Pure Land Faithful.” In Buddhism in Practice. Edited by Donald S. Lopez, 592–602. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995b.

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  Translations of three short documents from Amitābha hagiographical collections that illustrate its relationships with death attitudes, rituals, and visions.

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China and Amitābha in Arts

Because Amitābha Buddhism included a conspicuous visual element via its concrete descriptions of Amitābha’s Pure Land, it had a pervasive impact on Buddhist art, beginning in the stele era studied by Wong 1995. The Western desert sites, including Dunhuang, have preserved important examples, including the paintings studied by McIntire 2000 and Lee 1997 or the images recovered by explorer Stein (Jera-Bezard 1976). Yamabe 2002 argues that such paintings directly reflected meditation practices. Illustrations of the nine grades of birth in the Contemplation/Visualization Sutra became a special genre (Bryant 1995). Much later in the Ming period, a handscroll demonstrates the acceptance of Amitābha Buddhism among literati (Tsai 1997). Another side of Buddhist arts is music, which can be observed in modern Taiwan (Lee 2002).

• Bryant, Gail Chin. “Kuhon ōjōzu: Paintings of the Nine Grades of Birth: Context and Interpretation.” PhD diss., University of California–Los Angeles, 1995.

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  The nine levels of potential birth in the Pure Land that were described in the Visualization/Contemplation Sutra served as an important topic for illustration in Buddhist temples. This dissertation discusses the initial Chinese developments of the genre.

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• Jera-Bezard, Robert, and Monique Maillard. “Un paradis d’Amitābha de la collection Aurel Stein conservé au Musée National de New Delhi.” Arts Asiatiques 32 (1976): 269–285.

  DOI: 10.3406/arasi.1976.1104Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Descriptive discussion, with illustrations, of Pure Land and Amitābha images recovered from the famous Dunhuang site in China.

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• Lee, Yu-Min. “Amitabha Paintings from Khara Khoto.” National Palace Museum Bulletin 31.6 (January–February 1997): 1–16.

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  Study of Amitābha art recovered from the site of the medieval Tangut city of Khara Khoto. Continues in National Palace Museum Bulletin 32.1 (March–April 1997): 17–32.

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• Lee, Feng-hsiu. “Chanting the Amitabha Sutra in Taiwan: Tracing the Origin and Evolution of Chinese Buddhism Services in Monastic Communities.” PhD diss., Kent State University, 2002.

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  An unusual study of liturgy based on cultural theory and ethnomusicological approaches, including fieldwork.

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• McIntire, Jennifer Noering. “Visions of Paradise: Sui and Tang Buddhist Pure Land Representations at Dunhuang.” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2000.

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  The growth of Pure Land teachings and the associated practices of visualization that were thought to lead to karmic rebirth also stimulated illusionistic representations of Pure Lands in Chinese pictorial art. This is a detailed study of the art at the Buddhist Mogao (Dunhuang) complex (5th through 13th centuries) in northwest China.

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• Tsai, Hsing-li. “Ch’en Hung-Shou’s ‘Elegant Gathering’: A Late-Ming Pictorial Manifesto of Pure Land Buddhism.” PhD diss., University of Kansas, 1997.

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  A detailed study of a Ming handscroll that provides evidence for the widespread acceptance of Pure Land Buddhism among intellectuals in that period.

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• Wong, Dorothy C. “The Beginnings of the Buddhist Stele Tradition in China.” PhD diss., Harvard University, 1995.

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  Steles were a native tradition of stone slabs whose surfaces were used for carvings. Buddhist images began to appear on steles in the 5th and 6th centuries, recording, among other themes, the popular spread of Pure Land ideas.

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• Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. “Practice of Visualization and the Visualization Sūtra: An Examination of Mural Paintings at Toyok, Turfan.” Pacific World, 3d ser., 4 (Fall 2002): 123–152.

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  Argues that an understanding of the Visualization/Contemplation Sutra must take into account a wide range of evidence, including both additional texts on meditation and cave mural paintings apparently used for visualization.

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Contemporary Era of Chinese Amitābha Buddhism

In the early 20th century, Amitābha practice initially continued as it had in the 19th, as recorded by Welch 1967. Later, however, innovators produced more modern, socially-active variations on the mythos, as described by Pittman 2001 and Jones 2003. The most important of these variations has been the Foguang movement in Taiwan (Chandler 2004). Other reformers have included Yinguang (Zhang 2008) and Yinshun (Tien 1995). Modern Taiwanese Buddhism’s own voice has been represented increasingly in English (Hsing-yün-ta-shih 1991). New reporting is beginning to delineate the post-Maoist revival of Buddhism in the People’s Republic of China (Qin 2007)

• Chandler, Stuart. Establishing a Pure Land on Earth: The Foguang Buddhist Perspective on Modernization and Globalization. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.

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  Detailed study of the dynamic, innovative, modernization-friendly Taiwanese Foguang monastic Buddhist movement, from the perspective of religious globalization. As in earlier Chinese Buddhism, claims of lineage authority derived from Chan coexist complexly with Amitābha orientations, but in the Foguang version also with a distinctive slogan of “building a Pure Land in the human realm.”

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• Hsing-yün-ta-shih. The Lion’s Roar: Actualizing Buddhism in Daily Life and Building the Pure Land in our Midst. New York: P. Lang, 1991.

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  The teachings of one of the great modern Taiwanese reformers as rendered into an English version.

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• Jones, Charles B. “Transitions in the Practice and Defense of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism.” In Buddhism in the Modern World: Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition. Edited by Steven Heine and Charles S. Prebish, 125–142. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

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  An analysis of how modernity has affected the attitudes of major thinkers in contemporary Chinese Amitābha Buddhism by encouraging their reorientation to the present world, to humanistic rationalism, and to political progressivism.

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• Pittman, Don A. Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu’s Reforms. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001.

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  An extensive study of the pioneering modernist reformer Taixu (b.1890–d.1947), who reworked the Amitābha/Chan tradition he inherited in a manner emphasizing active ethical engagement with the world, a “Buddhism for human life,” and even the construction of a utopian “Pure Land on earth.”

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• Qin, Wen-jie, dir. To the Land of Bliss. DVD. Watertown, MA: Documentary Educational Resources, 2007.

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  Fascinating video depicts the current revival of Buddhism in mainland China (PRC) at the ancient Buddhist site of Emei-shan, based on the event of a Chinese Pure Land Buddhist master’s death and funeral.

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• Tien, Po-yao. “A Modern Buddhist Monk-Reformer in China: The Life and Thought of Yin-Shun.” PhD diss., California Institute of Integral Studies, 1995.

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  Not strictly objective, but supplies a useful introduction to the innovations of another 20th-century reformer.

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• Welch, Holmes. The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900–1950. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967.

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  Welch interviewed Chinese monks who had been dispersed by the Communist revolution and produced a virtually anthropological description of what early 20th-century Chinese monastic life was like, including the coexistence of Chan and Amitābha orientations, the latter sometimes serving as a complementary or “backup” religious plan.

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• Zhang, Xuesong. “A Critical Study on Yinguang and His Reconstruction of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism.” PhD diss., Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008.

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  Treating Chinese Pure Land as an open, “imagined community” rather than as a clear lineage, as in the case of Chan, for example, this study deals with the innovations of the modern reformer Yinguang. In Chinese, with English abstract.

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Premodern Period

In Korea, Amitābha stood out separately only in the early Silla period (Minamoto 1991 and McBride 2001) and was thereafter part of a general field of practice. Tanaka 2004 described the 7th-century teachings of Wŏnhyo. Pure Land was commented on by the major thinker Chinul (Buswell 1983). Philosophically, Korean thought about Amitābha followed Chinese mind-only patterns (Park 1983). The genre of biographical stories about persons reborn in Amitābha’s Pure Land manifested itself in Korea (Jang 1994). At least one Korean Buddhist priest attained distinct international importance because of his effect on the Japanese thinker Shinran (Keel 2005).

• Buswell, Robert E., trans. The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983.

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  Two texts by the great medieval Sŏn master Chinul situated Amitābha in relation to the Korean monastic tradition. “Encouragement to Practice” (pp. 96–134) criticized the low spiritual ambitions of Chinul’s contemporaries who were Pure Land Buddhists and thus expected that enlightenment must be deferred. “The Essentials of Pure Land Practice” (pp. 191–197) offered Chinul’s idea for Amitābha practice consisting of ten kinds of recollections of the Buddha, disciplinary in orientation, in conjunction with recitations of the name of Amitābha.

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• Jang, Hwee-ok. “Wŏnhyo and Rebirth Tales of Kwangdŏk and Ŏmjang from Silla.” Acta Asiatica 66 (1994): 57–68.

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  Against the background of the rise and popularity of Pure Land Buddhism in the Silla period, examines the life of the monk Wŏnhyo and the relationship of his teachings to a story about two followers’ birth in Amitābha’s Pure Land.

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• Keel, Hee-Sung. “Kyŏnghŭng in Shinran’s Pure Land Thought.” In Currents and Countercurrents: Korean Influences on the East Asian Buddhist Traditions. Edited by Robert E. Buswell Jr. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.

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  A study of the influence of the Silla scholar Kyŏnghŭng on the Japanese thinker Shinran, which constituted one of the important effects exerted by Korean Amitābha worship.

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• McBride, Richard Dewayne. “Buddhist Cults in Silla Korea in their Northeast Asian Context.” PhD diss., University of California–Los Angeles, 2001.

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  The eighth chapter deals with the generative period for a distinct Amitābha Buddhism in Korea, which occurred during the ancient Silla dynasty.

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• Minamoto, Hiroyuki. “Characteristics of Pure Land Buddhism of Silla.” In Assimilation of Buddhism in Korea: Religious Maturity and Innovation in the Silla Dynasty. Edited by Lewis R. Lancaster and C. S. Yu. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1991.

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  Pure Land was most prominent in Korea during the Silla period. Focusing on doctrine, the author argues that the Korean situation was distinguished by equally balanced emphases on Amitābha and Maitreya.

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• Park, Sung-bae. Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.

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  A discussion of interrelated issues of faith, practice, and enlightenment against a background of Korean Sŏn Buddhism, in which the mind-only philosophical treatment basically followed that in China.

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• Tanaka, Kenneth K. “Faith in Wŏnhyo’s Commentary on the Sutra of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life: The Elevated Role of Faith over Contemplation and Its Implication for the Contribution of Korean Buddhism to the Development of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism.” Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, 3d ser., 6 (Fall 2004): 45–56.

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  A study of ideas of Amitābha faith found in this 7th-century teacher.

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Korea and Amitābha in Arts

As in China, Amitābha was a major feature of Pure Land genre painting. As seen in Shin 2005 and Shin 2001, major visual themes included the so-called Amitābha triad (Amitābha plus two flanking deities, following sutra descriptions) and raigō scenes (Amitābha descending to meet the follower at the deathbed).

• Shin, Junhyoung Michael. “The Face-to-face Advent of the Amitābha Triad: A Fifteenth-Century Welcoming Descent” Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 6 (2001): 28–47.

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  Study of a Korean version of a raigō painting; this motif became highly important in Japan. This early Choson period Buddhist painting (hanging scroll) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

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• Shin, Juhnyoung Michael. “Iconographic Surrogates: Contemplating Amitābha Images in the Late Koryŏ Dynasty (Fourteenth Century).” Archives of Asian Art 55 (2005): 1–15.

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  Study of multipurpose paintings of Amitābha Buddha from the Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392) that served various devotional needs of Amitābha followers.

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Origins

Early Amitābha in Japan was like Amitābha in China in that it was congruent with the other kinds of Buddhism practiced in monastic settings, while at the same time being to some extent promoted to common people by popular proselytizers. Rhodes 2006 and Dobbins 1998 are two excellent surveys of the historical facts with two somewhat different foci.

• Dobbins, James C. “A Brief History of Pure Land Buddhism in Early Japan.” In Engaged Pure Land Buddhism: The Challenges of Jodō Shinshū in the Contemporary World. Edited by Kenneth K. Tanaka and Eisho Nasu, 113–165. Berkeley, CA: Wisdom Ocean, 1998.

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  A straightforward survey of the history of Amitābha worship before the transformative Kamakura period, covering a series of major themes: texts, arts, monastic figures, institutional settings, aristocratic sponsors, mappō (Latter Dharma) consciousness, and early popularizers.

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• Rhodes, Robert F. “The Beginning of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan: From Its Introduction through the Nara Period.” Japanese Religions 31.1 (January 2006): 1–22.

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  A summary of historical information about the period of introduction from Korea, the role of Prince Shōtoku, the growth of the Amida cult, the development of textual study, and the interest in a blissful afterlife as the primary motive for interest in Amitābha.

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Late Heian and Kamakura Periods

Japanese Buddhist history was marked by several reform thinkers and movements that, beginning in the late Heian and Kamakura period, popularized Amitābha ideas and practices in a way that separated them from the previous monastic milieu and gradually created new specially Amitābha-focused monastic lineages (Jōdoshū) as well as the radically nonmonastic Jōdoshinshū. Conventional Japanese apologetics once tended to overemphasize the reformism during the Kamakura period itself; that older approach has been more recently corrected by one emphasizing the long persistence of the earlier monastic forms and only gradual development of the newer ideas. Dobbins 1998 discusses the historiographical problem this has posed. Morrell 1987 presents four representatives of the earlier monastic lineages. A classic historical study of the early phase of Amitābha in Japan is Inoue 1975. Steineck 1997 offers German-language versions of some key texts; Nakamura, et al. 1990 is an example of a modern Japanese edition of the three key Pure Land sutras. Rhodes 1999 discusses the monk Senkan, who proposed a version of Pure Land inside the Tendai monastic tradition; Buijnsters 1999 treats a monk who combined precepts, esotericism, and Pure Land. Wetzler 1977 indicates how a member of the Heian aristocracy was engaged with Amitābha Buddhism. Always, in the background, Amitābha was commonly mixed up with all kinds of popular or generic religious imagination as well, as indicated by articles in Blum and Amstutz 2006 and MacWilliams 2000.

• Blum, Mark L., and Galen Amstutz, eds. Special Issue: Varieties of Pure Land Experience. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 33.2 (2006).

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  Seven articles in this journal volume deal with popular manifestations of Amitābha imagination, especially as expressed in mandalas, tantric practices, and kami-religion (Shintō).

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• Buijnsters, Marc. “Jichihan and the Restoration and Innovation of Buddhist Practice.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 26.1–2 (Spring 1999): 39–82.

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  During the innovative Kamakura period in Japan, the late-Heian monk Jichihan contributed pivotally to both reviving precept practice, which was understood to be in decline, and melding Pure Land ideas into Shingon school esoteric/tantric teachings.

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• Dobbins, James C. “Envisioning Kamakura Buddhism.” In Re-visioning “Kamakura” Buddhism. Edited by Richard K. Payne, 24–42. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998.

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  Indispensable survey concerning the historiographical positions and shifts, ranging from emphases on reformism to emphases on economics, demonstrated in interpretations of the new kinds of Buddhism that emerged during the Kamakura period in Japan. Dobbins proposes his own model based on cultic centers and founders.

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• Inoue, Mitsusada (井上光貞). Nihon Jōdokyō seiritsushi no kenkyū (日本淨土敎成立史の研究). Tokyo: Yamakawa, 1975.

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  Classic study by a modern Japanese scholar of the early course of Pure Land teaching in Japan.

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• MacWilliams, Mark W. “The Holy Man’s Hut as a Symbol of Stability in Japanese Buddhist Pilgrimage.” Numen 47.4 (2000): 387–416.

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  Reflecting earlier literature about ascetics, in tales about early modern Buddhist pilgrimage routes holy men’s huts are built to enshrine Buddhist images at empowered physical spots that are held to simulate or communicate with Pure Land paradises.

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• Morrell, Robert E. Early Kamakura Buddhism: A Minority Report. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1987.

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  In response to the distorting pressure on the image of Japanese Buddhism exerted by an excessive emphasis on alleged Kamakura Buddhist reform, the author studied the work of priests from four of the conservative, earlier schools that continued during the same time period, including Jōkei of the Hossō school, who was involved in a famous dispute about Hōnen’s teaching, and Kakukai of the Shingon school, whose “mind-only” understanding of Amitābha was rooted in his tantric philosophy.

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• Nakamura Hajime, Hayashima Kyōshō, and Kino Kazuyoshi (中村元, 早島鏡正, 紀野一義訳註), trans. Jōdo sanbukyō (浄土三部経). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1990.

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  Contains texts of Pure Land sutras in Japanese and Chinese, in part translated from Sanskrit original. Example of a modern Japanese version and commentary, in this case including among its authors Nakamura Hajime, one of the most famous modern Japanese Buddhologists.

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• Rhodes, Robert F. “Bodhisattva Practice and Pure Land Practice: Senkan and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan.” Japanese Religions 24.1 (1999): 1–28.

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  Senkan was an early Tendai monk who attempted to legitimate Pure Land practice in Tendai Buddhism by presenting it as a merely deferred approach to the normative Tendai rhetoric of bodhisattva practice and universal buddhahood.

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• Steineck, Christian. Quellentexte des japanischen Amida-Buddhismus. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1997.

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  German translations, with introductory material, of passages from the most important Japanese Pure Land figures: Hōnen, Shinran, and Ippen.

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• Wetzler, Peter Michael. “‘Yoshishige no Yasutane’: Lineage, Learning, Office, and Amida’s Pure Land.” PhD diss., University of California–Berkeley, 1977.

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  Study of a minor Heian aristocrat and writer whose life and compositions illuminate the Pure Land Buddhist beliefs of his time.

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Genshin

The monk Genshin played a pivotal bridging role in opening up the resources of monastic Amitābha Buddhism to a larger range of people, beginning with Kyoto aristocrats. Andrews 1973 surveys the contents of his key book. Andrews 1989 evaluates how Genshin’s contribution fit into the flow of historical change, while Rhodes 2007 provides a methodologically sophisticated study showing how different modes of communication about Amitābha ideas were operant in the period. Horton 2001 and Horton 2004 research the social patterns that enabled Genshin’s ideas to reach a large audience.

• Andrews, Allan A. The Teachings Essential for Rebirth: a Study of Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū. Tokyo: Sophia University, 1973.

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  Genshin’s Heian-period book was highly influential in spreading Amitābha consciousness in Japan. The author addresses the antecedents in China and pre-Heian Japan and analyzes how Genshin promoted and systematized nembutsu theory and practice.

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• Andrews, Allan A. “Genshin’s Essentials of Pure Land Rebirth and the Transmission of Pure Land Buddhism to Japan. Part I: The First and Second Phases of Transmission of Pure Land Buddhism to Japan: The Nara Period and Early Heian Period.” Pacific World, new ser., 5 (Fall 1989): 20–32.

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  First of a trio of articles that place Genshin’s thought in the complex Buddhist context of his time, in which multiple influences were at play, especially the interactions of the older monastic traditions and native Japanese populism. The second and third parts were published in the same journal in 1990 and 1991.

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• Horton, Sarah Johanna. “The Role of Genshin and Religious Associations in the Mid-Heian Spread of Pure Land Buddhism.” PhD diss., Yale University, 2001.

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  The Heian teacher Genshin undoubtedly had great influence in popularizing Pure Land teachings, but the author argues that, more than by Genshin’s famous Ōjōyōshū text per se, the influence was exerted by religious associations of monks who cultivated new rituals.

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• Horton, Sarah. “The Influence of the Ojoyoshu in Late Tenth- and Early-Eleventh-century Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 31.1 (2004): 29–54.

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  Presents conclusions from the author’s dissertation. The Ōjōyōshū was not mentioned often in writings of Heian aristocrats. Instead, Genshin taught more through his participation in and leadership of a number of religious fellowships.

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• Rhodes, Robert F. “Ōjōyōshū, Nihon Ōjō Gokuraku-ki, and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 34.2 (2007): 249–270.

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  Methodologically sophisticated, the author starts with that idea that there are two distinct, equally valuable modes of thought, the paradigmatic (or logico-scientific) and the narrative, and argues that texts written in both of these modes were crucial in the establishment of Amitābha Buddhism in Japan during the Heian Period. The Ōjōyōshū is an example of a text in the paradigmatic mode, and the Nihon Ōjō Gokuraku-ki, a collection of Pure Land rebirth biographies of individuals, an example of the narrative mode.

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Death Consciousness and Ritual

In traditional Japanese Amitābha Buddhism the role of the karmic transition at the deathbed was especially important. Blum 2007, Kotas 1987, and Bathgate 2006 describe the tradition of hagiographies concerning individuals thought to have achieved birth with Amitābha, a genre that built on a long earlier record. Bowring 1998 examined how a group of Heian aristocrats undertook such end-of-life-oriented practices. Andrews 1977 discussed Amitābha from the category of world-rejection. How Genshin provided a concrete plan for deathbed ritual has been delineated by Dobbins 1999. Horton 2008 draws attention to the performance genre of theatrical pageants presenting deathbed raigō scenes.

• Andrews, Allan A. “World Rejection and Pure Land Buddhism in Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 4.4 (December 1977): 251–266.

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  Discusses the reception of Amitābha from the standpoint of the Weberian category of world-rejection, especially in its original appeal to aristocrats.

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• Bathgate, Michael. “The Time of Ōjōden: Narrative and Salvation in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism.” In Buddhist Studies from India to America: Essays in Honor of Charles S. Prebish. Edited by Damien Keown, 73–88. New York: Routledge, 2006.

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  Reflecting increasing scholarly attention to lay dimensions of Buddhism, this is a methodologically sophisticated treatment of the genre of rebirth stories emphasizing their function as exemplary narratives serving to create a community of belief.

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• Blum, Mark L. “Biography as Scripture: Ōjōden in India, China, and Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 34.2 (2007): 329–350.

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  Records of individuals who achieved rebirth in the Land of Amitābha Buddha started as a genre of hagiography in 8th-century China, began appearing in Japan in the late 10th century, and continued to appear afterward in substantial numbers, showing influences from monastic life and miracle texts.

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• Bowring, Richard. “Preparing for the Pure Land in Late Tenth-Century Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 25.3–4 (1998): 221–257.

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  A study of the group of Heian aristocrats who borrowed from monastic practices and pioneered a communal use of Amitābha devotion as a way to prepare for death, in close relationship with the monk Genshin.

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• Dobbins, James C. “Genshin’s Deathbed Nembutsu Ritual in Pure Land Buddhism.” In Religions of Japan in Practice. Edited by George J. Tanabe Jr., 166–175. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

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  Translation of passages by the priest Genshin who provided a specific description of an ideal deathbed ritual that would lead to birth in the Pure Land with Amitābha.

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• Horton, Sarah Johanna. “Mukaekō: Practice for the Deathbed.” In Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism. Edited by Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, 27–60. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008.

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  A historical survey of raigō and the theatrical performances called mukaekō, which are enactments of raigō scenes and thus forms of rehearsal for the actual deathbed moments of persons.

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• Kotas, Frederic J. “Ōjōden: Accounts of Rebirth in the Pure Land.” PhD diss., University of Washington, 1987.

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  A pioneering study of the genre (in the 11th and 12th centuries) of Japanese biographies of persons thought to have achieved karmic birth in a Buddhist Pure Land, especially that of Amitābha. Includes selected translations.

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Hōnen

The most important figure in the sharper separation of Amitābha worship from the synthetic sphere of earlier Japanese Buddhism was Hōnen, who radically taught that only a simplified form of Amitābha practice could be valid under contemporary historical conditions. Shunjō 1925 (translated by Coates and Ishizuka) is a translation of the most important Hōnen biography. Senchakushū English Translation Project 1998 is a translation of a central Hōnen work that explains Hōnen’s key doctrines on nembutsu (see also Hōnen 2011). Andrews 2004 summarizes these doctrines. However, Hōnen’s own personal Buddhist practice seems to have remained in the realm of samādhi nevertheless (Blum 2000 and King 1987). Hōnen’s actual position in the context of medieval Japanese Buddhism is more fully illuminated by comparison with the more conservative views of his fellow monastics, such as Jōkei (Ford 2001). German scholarship has been drawn to Hōnen: Kleine 1996 and Repp 2005 and Repp 2010 deal in different ways with the complex contexts of society and religion that existed around the priest’s ideas.

• Andrews, Allen A. “Hōnen on Attaining Pure Land Rebirth: The Selected Nenbutsu of the Original Vow” Pacific World, 3d ser., 6 (Fall 2004): 89–107.

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  A survey of Hōnen’s views on nembutsu, quality of proper nembutsu, self-power vs. other-power, and the Buddhist precepts, concluding with a reflection on the varieties of Pure Land Buddhism.

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• Blum, Mark. “Samādhi in Hōnen’s Hermeneutic of Practice and Faith: Assessing the Sammai hottokki.” In Wisdom, Compassion, and the Search for Understanding: The Buddhist Studies Legacy of Gadjin M. Nagao. Edited by Jonathan A. Silk, 61–94. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000.

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  The author argues, against the theories of the minimal vocal nembutsu used in the Jōdoshū and Jōdoshinshū schools and attributed to Hōnen, that for Hōnen himself samādhic experiences were essential to his Buddhist praxis.

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• Ford, James L. “Jōkei and Hōnen: Debating Buddhist Liberation in Medieval Japan—Then and Now.” Pacific World, 3d ser., 3 (Fall 2001): 199–217.

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  Detailed analysis of the differing doctrinal orientations of the two Kamakura period Buddhist figures; the author defends Jōkei’s position as both more correctly rooted in Buddhist precedent and more embracingly pluralistic.

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• Hōnen. The Promise of Amida Buddha: Honen’s Path to Bliss. Translated by Jōji Atone and Yōko Hayashi. Boston: Wisdom, 2011.

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  English translations of a main historical collection of Hōnen’s writings known as Wago tōroku. The introduction presents in English the position on nembutsu doctrine and development maintained one of the main Japanese Jōdō schools.

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• King, Winston L. “Hōnen’s Visualizations of the Pure Land.” Pure Land 4 (1987): 126–141.

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  A lucid look at the ambiguities or paradoxes in Hōnen, in whose writings conspicuous elements of the traditional visualization practices for Pure Land practice remain. Suggests the teacher had a de facto two-track model, the older visualization traditions for monks, the simple vocal nembutsu for ordinary people.

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• Kleine, Christoph. Hōnens Buddhismus des Reinen Landes: Reform, Reformation oder Häresie? New York: P. Lang, 1996.

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  Study by the leading German scholar of Hōnen, trying to overcome the Hōnen hagiographical tradition and instead fully situate his thought in the context of his time as a partial innovator but not really an institutional revolutionary.

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• Repp, Martin. Hōnens religiöses Denken: Eine Untersuchung zu Strukturen religiöser Erneuerung. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2005.

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  A lengthy, wide-ranging study of Hōnen, placing balanced emphases on sociopolitical context, background intellectual context, and Pure Land doctrine, concluding with a consideration of certain structural similarities between Hōnen and Luther.

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• Repp, Martin. “Socio-economic Impact of Hōnen’s Pure Land Doctrines: An Inquiry Into the Interplay between Buddhist Teachings and Institutions.” In The Social Dimension of Shin Buddhism. Edited by Ugo Dessi, 11–58. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 2010.

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  Via a close reading of Hōnen’s writings and social context, this provides a detailed treatment of the argument that Hōnen’s exclusivist/minimalist idea of the nembutsu, by equalizing among all human beings the type of Buddhist practice possible in the late historical era of decline (mappō), contributed to processes that would begin undermine earlier conceptions of hierarchical political, economic, and religious authority in early medieval Japan.

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• Senchakushū English Translation Project, trans. and ed. Hōnen’s Senchakushū: Passages on the Selection of the Nembutsu in the Original Vow (Senchaku hongan nembutsu shū). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998.

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  Together with the translation, this volume contains extensive prefatory matter detailing a modern (somewhat sectarian) interpretation of the contents of this key doctrinal statement by Hōnen.

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• Shunjō. Honen, the Buddhist Saint: His Life and Teaching. Compiled by Imperial Order and translated by Harper Havelock Coates and Rev. Ryugaku Ishizuka. Kyoto: Chionin, 1925.

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  This is a long English translation of a famous biography of Hōnen created in the early 12th century in Japan. It is hagiographic but contains abundant information about doctrine as well as the essential life story. Reprinted as Coates and Ishizuka, Honen the Buddhist Saint (New York: Garland, 1981). Also, an abbreviated version of the original with new introductory material has been published as Honen the Buddhist Saint: Essential Writings and Official Biography from the 14th Century Manuscript Compiled by Imperial Order (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2006).

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Japan and Amitābha in Arts

As in China, because Amitābha worship included a large visual element via its concrete descriptions of Amitābha’s Pure Land, it had a pervasive impact on Buddhist art while manifesting a diversity of interpretations throughout the premodern and modern eras.

Ippen

Ippen was a wandering teacher who offered yet another, alternative version of Amitābha thought, blending ideas from Hōnen, Shingon tantrism, and kami-religion. Useful introductions to the man and his organization are provided by Foard 1996 and Fujii 1994. Thornton 1999 focused on how Ippen’s ideas turned into the institutionalized Jishū school. Ippen left verses and sayings that have been translated by Hirota 1998. In visual arts, Ippen is associated with a famous illustrated handscroll biography that has been repeatedly studied (Foard 1992, Kaufman 1992, and Hirota 1995).

• Foard, James H. “Prefiguration and Narrative in Medieval Hagiography: The Ippen Hijiri-e.” In Flowing Traces: Buddhism in the Literary and Visual Arts of Japan. Edited by James H. Sanford, William R. LaFleur, and Masatoshi Nagatomi, 76–92. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.

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  The Ippen scroll is part of the broad tradition of Buddhist hagiography; this article provides a literary and mythic analysis of some of its meanings.

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• Foard, James H. “Ippen and Pure Land Wayfarers in Medieval Japan.” In The Pure Land Tradition: History and Development. Edited by Foard, James H., Michael Solomon, and Richard K. Payne, 357–397. Berkeley: Regents of the University of California, 1996.

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  A scholarly study focusing on Ippen as part of the broad tradition of hijiri traveling (religious itinerancy).

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• Fujii, Manabu. “Ippen (1239–1289).” In Shapers of Japanese Buddhism. Edited by Yūsen Kashiwahara and Kōyū Sonoda. Translated by Gaynor Sekimori, 135–146. Tokyo: Kosei, 1994.

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  A basic presentation of the biography.

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• Hirota, Dennis. “The Illustrated Biography of Ippen.” In Buddhism in Practice. Edited by Donald S. Lopez Jr., 563–577. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.

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  Translation of passages of medieval Japanese text from the Ippen handscroll that record a contemporary account of Ippen’s life and teaching.

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• Hirota, Dennis, trans. No Abode: The Record of Ippen. Rev. ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998.

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  A translation of the extant texts attributable to Ippen. The introduction emphasizes the Mahayana nondual thought in Ippen’s teaching and its relationship to other thinkers such as Shinran.

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• Kaufman, Laura S. “Nature, Courtly Imagery, and Sacred Meaning in the Ippen Hijiri-e.” In Flowing Traces: Buddhism in the Literary and Visual Arts of Japan. Edited by James H. Sanford, William R. LaFleur, and Matatoshi Nagatomi, 47–75. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.

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  The scroll is full of interest and meaning for the history of Japanese arts generally, owing to its rich communal, landscape, and architectural scenes and literary content.

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• Thornton, Sybil Anne. Charisma and Community Formation in Medieval Japan: The Case of the Yugyō-ha (1300–1700). Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1999.

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  As suggested in the title, treats the hijiri successors of Ippen in terms of Weberian sociology as a community and eventually institution that was formed by the routinization of charisma.

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Obaku Zen

One of the intriguing details of Tokugawa Buddhism was the direct introduction of a contemporary, 17th-century Chinese Buddhist practice, which in Chinese style embraced both Zen and Amitābha. Baroni 2000 summarizes the doctrine, and Baroni 2006 touches on how one of its leaders engaged in disagreements with sectarian Jōdoshinshū.

• Baroni, Helen J. Obaku Zen: The Emergence of the Third Sect of Zen in Tokugawa Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000.

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  One of the chapters (106–121) specifically discusses how Obaku combined Amitābha and Zen in Ming Chinese style.

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• Baroni, Helen J. Iron Eyes: The Life and Teachings of Ōbaku Zen Master Tetsugen Dōkō. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.

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  Illustrating the factional conflicts that could arise in Japanese Buddhism, at one point Tetsugen came into sharp doctrinal conflict with Shin Buddhists (21–26, 175–181).

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Basic Texts and Doctrines

Shin Buddhism was the later product of Amitābha in Japan, which maintained a singular idea of “deeply entrusting to the Buddha” as the goal in Buddhism. Its foundational ideas were generated by Shinran (b. 1173–d. 1262). These ideas were so strong that a modern interpretive problem overall has been the tendency for the Shin Buddhist reading of “the” Pure Land tradition (a reading that is the product of a powerful, teleological intellectualism that has a substantial representation in the English language) to dominate other versions and promote historical misunderstanding of the diversity of Amitābha experience as a whole across Asia. (As a unitary concept, Buddhism was a 19th-century European intellectual invention, and an overemphasized unitary idea of Amitābha is a Japanese invention.) Shinran’s own textual corpus has been rendered into English several times; the two major projects have been the Ryukoku Translation Series, published 1962–1980, and the work leading to Hirota 1997. Unno 1996 is one of the many translations of the short oral classic Tannishō, which has persisted as one of the most popular Buddhist books in modern Japan. Inagaki 1995 provides insight into Shin’s sectarian scholarly apparatus. A most useful, although sectarian, contextualization of Shin within general Mahayana Buddhism is Ueda 1989. Bloom 1965 has introduced Shin doctrine to generations of English readers. Shigefuji 1973 represents an analysis of nembutsu practice from a traditional Jōdoshinshū position, and Ingram 1968 an appreciation from another well-informed Western standpoint. Grumbach 2005 offers a skeptical view of conventional categorizations of practice while re-emphasizing Shinran’s radicalism.

• Bloom, Alfred. Shinran’s Gospel of Pure Grace. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1965.

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  Long-used, pioneering summary of Shinran’s teaching by one of the main American scholar-popularizers.

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• Fujiwara, Ryosetsu, trans. The Tanni shō: Notes Lamenting Differences. Kyoto: Ryukoku Translation Center, Ryukoku University, 1962.

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  This is the first of a series of publications from the Ryukoku Translation Series project, which completed a number of English volumes between 1962 and 1980 (including Shōshin ge, Jōdo wasan, Kyō gyō shin shō, Kōsō wasan, and Shōzōmatsu wasan). The versions are bilingual, with Japanese and English on facing pages, and include notes and glossaries that are also highly useful for language study.

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• Grumbach, Lisa. “Nenbutsu and Meditation: Problems with the Categories of Contemplation, Devotion, Meditation, and Faith.” Pacific World, 3d ser., 7 (Fall 2005): 91–105.

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  Via a catalog of the several types of nembutsu available in Kamakura-period Japan, the author argues that many attempts to make sharp distinctions among ideas and practices such as “contemplation,” “meditation,” “devotion,” “ritual,” and so on are historically misleading and harm the contemporary reception of Pure Land Buddhism. Shinran’s own radical teaching should be understood as a rejection of the normal nembutsu of his time.

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• Hirota, Dennis, et. al, trans. The Collected Works of Shinran. 2 vols. Kyoto: Jodo shinshu Hongwanji-ha, 1997.

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  The most up-to-date translation, massively informative, comprehensive, with extensive reference matter, but also conveying a heavy sectarian perspective.

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• Inagaki, Hisao (稻垣久雄), ed. Shinshū yōgo Eiyaku gurossarī: A Glossary of Shin Buddhist Terms (真宗用語英訳グロッサリー). Kyoto: Ryūkoku Daigaku Bukkyō Bunka Kenkyūjo, 1995.

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  The modern Shin educational establishment possesses a robust and sophisticated (if often conceptually narrow) academic establishment that has produced numerous in-depth textual and philological studies and reference books. The above is an English-language window into such material.

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• Ingram, Paul Owens. “Pure Land Buddhism in Japan: A Study of the Doctrine of Faith in the Teachings of Hōnen and Shinran.” PhD diss., Claremont Graduate University, 1968.

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  A judicious overview from a roughly Lutheran perspective.

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• Shigefuji, Shinei Nobuhide. “Nembutsu in Shinran and his Teachers: A Comparison.” PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1973.

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  An example in English of traditional nembutsu analysis from the perspective of the Jōdoshinshū tradition.

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• Ueda, Yoshifumi, and Dennis Hirota. Shinran: An Introduction to His Thought. Kyoto: Hongwanji International Center, 1989.

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  An introductory work that has been effective in English, especially in establishing the broad Mahayana philosophical basis for Shinran’s thought.

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• Unno, Taitetsu, trans. Tannisho: A Shin Buddhist Classic. Rev. ed. Honolulu, Hawaii: Buddhist Study Center Press, 1996.

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  An example of a translation of the classic, this by a leading scholar-popularizer in the United States.

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Premodern Era

Shin Buddhism stood out greatly because of its strong institutional profile, as surveyed in Dobbins 1986. Dobbins 1989 remains the standard work on early Shin history. The institution was held together not only by doctrine per se, but by the mythos of its founder Shinran (Dobbins 2001). Rogers 1991 treats Rennyo’s period of rapid proselytization in the 15th century, and Tsang 2007 covers the era of partial militarization and organized political resistance in the 16th century. Blum and Yasutomi 2006 is a wide-ranging collection of articles on the middle period of the institution.

• Blum, Mark L., and Shinya Yasutomi, eds. Rennyo and the Roots of Modern Japanese Buddhism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

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  A collection of seventeen articles by leading scholars refocusing attention on the life of Rennyo and his contribution to Shin tradition and the religious life of Japan. More than half are translations representing the latest Japanese scholarship.

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• Dobbins, James C. “From Inspiration to Institution: The Rise of Sectarian Identity in Jodo Shinshu.” Monumenta Nipponica 41.3 (Autumn 1986): 331–343.

  DOI: 10.2307/2384681Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Describes the development of the Honganji institution from its start in Shinran’s ideas.

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• Dobbins, James C. Jōdo Shinshū: Shin Buddhism in Medieval Japan. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.

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  The standard work on early Shin history, covering the early background, Shinran and his teachings, the early organization and the establishment of its center at Honganji, and early Shin factions and their rivals in other schools of Buddhism.

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• Dobbins, James C. “Portraits of Shinran in Medieval Pure Land Buddhism.” In Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context. Edited by Robert H. Sharf and Elizabeth Horton Sharf, 19–48. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.

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  Founders’ portraits reveal the importance of personal images of founders in structuring imagination in the Japanese Buddhist sects; Shin Buddhism was no exception.

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• Rogers, Minor L., and Anne T. Rodgers. Rennyo: The Second Founder of Shin Buddhism. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1991.

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  The standard work on the “middle founder” of Shin, who rode a wave of late-15th-century sociopolitical change that helped to spread and consolidate the Shin tradition. The contents mainly include a detailed study of the biography as well as a translation of Rennyo’s famous proselytizing letters to his followers.

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• Tsang, Carol Richmond. War and Faith: Ikkō Ikki in Late Muromachi Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007.

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  The latest study of Shin Buddhism and Honganji in the 16th century, when some its membership resisted control by daimyo.

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Modern Era

Twentieth-century Shin has given rise to a fairly rich field of English-language literature, both academic and apologetic. Porcu 2008 is an overview of the many cultural influences Shin has exerted in contemporary Japan. Bloom 2004 provides an introduction to a swath of modern Shin writers and scholars, including D. T. Suzuki. Shin has been somewhat more socially progressive than other types of traditional Japanese Buddhism, an ethical tradition studied by Dessì 2007 and Dessì 2008 along with essays in Tanaka and Nasu 1998. Itsuki 2001 is an example of contemporary Japanese popular literature about Shin; Unno 1998 is an example of popularizing literature directed at a general American audience. Amstutz 1997 tries, among other things, to analyze why Shin had been somewhat marginalized in awareness of Buddhism outside of Japan. Contemporary Shin was presented effectively in the first half of the film production Buddhism: The Land of the Disappearing Buddha in the BBC Long Search series (Montagnon 1987).

• Amstutz, Galen Dean. Interpreting Amida: History and Orientalism in the Study of Pure Land Buddhism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

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  Investigates why Shin Buddhism has been relatively marginalized in the non-Japanese appreciation of Buddhism.

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• Bloom, Alfred, ed. Living in Amida’s Universal Vow: Essays in Shin Buddhism. Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2004.

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  This is an exemplary collection of articles representing a gamut of modern Shin writings: doctrine by Japanese thinkers Kiyozawa, Soga, Kaneko, Suzuki, and others and by leading English-language interpreters of Shin; discussions of modern political and ethical issues in Shin; and historical and comparative perspectives. An excellent starting place for a representation of the tradition.

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• Dessì, Ugo. Ethics and Society in Contemporary Shin Buddhism. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2007.

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  This study takes up how social ethical thought has evolved in 20th-century Shin, starting with the doctrinal history, the challenge of issuing explicit ethical recommendations in terms of Shin’s doctrinal system, the success of Shin thinkers in being able nevertheless to undertake social action against war and social discrimination, and Shin’s uncertain relationship with globalization.

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• Dessì, Ugo. “The Pure Land as a Principle of Social Criticism.” Japanese Religions 33.1–2 (2008): 75–90.

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  Study of how Pure Land doctrine has worked in 20th-century Shin Buddhism to generate a tradition of social criticism.

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• Itsuki, Hiroyuki. Tariki: Embracing Despair, Discovering Peace. Translated by Joseph Robert. Tokyo: Kodansha, 2001.

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  The discourse of Shin Buddhism retains significant energy in modern Japan despite the tendencies to dormancy in the established Buddhist institutions. This is an example of a popular work on Shin teaching by a celebrity author.

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• Montagnon, Peter, prod. Buddhism: The Land of the Disappearing Buddha. Vol. 9 of the Long Search Series. DVD. New York: Ambrose Video, 1987.

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  Approximately the first half of this production provided a solid look at contemporary Shin Buddhism, featuring interviews with ordinary members as well as institutional leaders, some exposure to the typical doctrine, and a depiction of the contrast with Zen.

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• Porcu, Elisabetta. Pure Land Buddhism in Modern Japanese Culture. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 2008.

  DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004164710.i-263Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Survey of the contemporary impact of Shin tradition, examining how unbalanced existing images of Japanese Buddhism have been created by orientalism, and exploring expressions of Shin in creative literature, visual arts, and the tea ceremony.

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• Tanaka, Kenneth K., and Eisho Nasu, eds. Engaged Pure Land Buddhism: The Challenges of Jodo Shinshu in the Contemporary World: Studies in Honor of Professor Alfred Bloom. Berkeley, CA: Wisdom Ocean, 1998.

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  A set of fifteen essays, all but two relating specifically to Shin Buddhism. Four of the essays deal with social engagement but the remainder are on miscellaneous facets. Also a good approach to contemporary writing on Shin.

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• Unno, Taitetsu. River of Fire, River of Water: An Introduction to the Pure Land Tradition of Shin Buddhism. New York: Doubleday, 1998.

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  A popularizing work combining anecdotes, Buddhist philosophy, and Shin doctrinal language for a general audience in America.

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