Sanskrit Antecedents for the Expression ‘Pure Land’ and Its Related Cosmology and Soteriology: A Preliminary Report on Studies in the Indian Origins of Pure Land Thought and Practice

Abstract

This is a preliminary report on a study of Indic precedents for Pure Land traditions. It contests anglophone scholarship that find those traditions to be predominantly East Asian constructions in discontinuity with Indian Buddhism. The first part, related to previously unpublished research, disputes a common leading point of such arguments that the expression pure land, jingtu, has no Sanskrit antecedents. The article will show that Sanskrit antecedents for jingtu are in fact abundant. The second part summarizes previously published work showing that the cosmology, soteriology, and buddhology of buddhakṣetras have explicit foundations among the heavens and devas. The third part forecasts research for Kenneth Tanaka’s “Other Power” project. ‘Other-power’ has been seen as discordant with Indian traditions, when even abhidharma sources state that, through ‘a single mind of faith in Buddha to the marrow of one’s bones, one can overcome infinite bad karma.’ The salvific power of the names of buddhas is a common concept in Indian Buddhism, declared even by Nāgārjuna. Not discounting Chinese and Japanese creative contributions and acculturation, Pure Land traditions are in strong natural continuity with Indian Buddhist thought.

1. Introduction

This article offers preliminary findings of what will ultimately be three chapters of a general study of the Indian antecedents of the East Asian Pure Land traditions. My interest in this area started in the 1990s while working for the Senchakushū English Translation Project. Their original intention was to include a chapter on the Indian origins of Pure Land thought, but it became clear at the time that there was insufficient research in this area, and ideas regarding Indian origins were influenced by traditional Pure Land historiography. Since that time, a prominent Pure Land priest who was a member of that team has told me that, particularly under the influence of the “mindfulness” movement, Pure Land is popularly regarded as an inauthentic form of Buddhism in Japan. Academic research on the Indian origins of Pure Land thought, practice, and soteriology have also often concluded that Pure Land Buddhism represents a discordant break with Indian Buddhism. This article contests a number of points that support such conclusions. As we will show below, the expression “pure land” is incorrectly regarded as a late Chinese invention possibly introduced by Kumārajīva. It has also been suggested that the association of purity with buddha-fields and hence the whole discourse regarding their purification may have resulted from mistranslation. Sukhāvatī is incorrectly said to have first been regarded as a pure land not in India, but only later by Chinese commentators. The soteriology of “other-power” appears so discordant with the original Indian Buddhism that Julian Pas suggests that it would make the Buddha “turn over in his grave.”1 In her study of the Indian roots of Pure Land, Jan Nattier asks: ‘How could a view so distant from early Buddhism emerge?’2

This paper begins by discussing the origins of the expression jingtu, showing it has explicit and abundant Sanskrit antecedents that are directly translated by jingtu, and that the use of jingtu to translate Sanskrit expressions like pariśuddha-buddhakṣetra occurs in the earliest translations long before Kumārajīva. Since this is a preliminary report, the focus will be on the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra, but this observation has held true across a broad range of prominent Mahāyāna scriptures, including the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra. The paper then moves to the cosmological and conceptual descriptions of pure lands that are directly, and often explicitly, derived from the heaven realms that preceded them. In this section, we will see that the qualities of the pure lands and the beings that inhabit them, such as radiance, super longevity, and bliss [as in Limitless Light, Limitless Life and Sukhāvatī], are directly derived from the heavens and their inhabitants. This section summarizes previously published work.3 Lastly we will see that the devotional soteriology of other-power, which overcomes bad karma and allows deathbed aspirants in particular to attain irreversible birth in luminous lands of bliss, is also to be found even in abhidharmic sources. As early as the writings of Nāgārjuna, we see the great Buddhist philosopher expressing the salvific power of buddhas’ names. As shown below, the ability to access “the power of the Buddha” by calling out to him from great distances is found in Pali and Sanskrit narrative traditions. Keeping in mind the diversity and cultural evolution of all aspects of Buddhist tradition, the devotional roots of Buddhism are as rich and continuous as its philosophical traditions. Let me emphasize that I intend to deepen the sense that East Asian Pure Land traditions are in continuity with their Indian predecessors, not to equate their soteriological and cosmological conceptions. Please bear in mind throughout that this is a preliminary report.

1.1. Part 1: The Indic Antecedents of the Expression “Pure Land”

Recent scholarship displays a common assumption in Pure Land Studies that the expression ‘pure land’, Ch. jingtu, has no Sanskrit antecedents. The claims of Fujita, Nattier, Gómez and others that ‘no single Sanskrit equivalent has ever been found’ for ‘pure Land’, now informs reference works.4 According to Jan Nattier: ‘The term “Pure Land” (Ch. ching-t’u/Jpn. jōdo) is not, of course, an Indian term. It has no known Sanskrit antecedent, and it is now widely agreed that this expression was first coined in China.”5 Fujita, generally referenced on this point, states that ‘the term “Pure Land” (ching-t’u) was first coined in China; no single Sanskrit equivalent has ever been found.’6 The following statement was published in the same year:

The actual Chinese term ‘ching-t’u 淨土 (literally, “pure land”) is a rendering which may encompass several different corresponding Sanskrit words. In the Chinese versions, the term is used as a translation of such phrases as “the arrangement of good qualities and decorations of the Buddha-land” (buddhakṣetraguṇavyūhālaṃkāra) in the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha¹ or simply as “land” (kṣetra) in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka,² and is not a literal translation of the original words. There are cases as well in which the Chinese translators simply added the word in the course of their work. From these points, doubts may arise as to whether the thought system expressed in the Chinese word ching-t’u ever really existed in India in the first place.7

However, Fujita may have been misunderstood or mistranslated. In the same context where he states that there is no Sanskrit antecedent, he also notes that ‘in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, are found the words pariśuddha-kṣetra, kṣetraṃ viśuddham etc.,⁴ which mean “purified land”; these expressions could be regarded as corresponding literally to the Chinese word for pure land.’8 [Emphasis added] Indeed, these, like many others shown below are obvious literal expressions for ‘pure land.’ It is also possible that he changed his opinion in later work. In 2005, he wrote:

In Chinese Buddhism, two technical terms, jingtu and huitu, are used to refer to Pure and Impure Lands, respectively. The concept behind these terms, however, is attested to in Indian Buddhist texts by such terms as buddhakṣetra-pariśuddhi (“the purification of the buddha land”) or pariśuddhaṃ buddhakṣetram (“purified buddha land”), as in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (edited by Rajendralal Mitra, Calcutta, 1888, pp. 362–63), and apariśuddhaṃ buddhakṣetram (“unpurified buddha land”) or kliṣṭaṃ buddhakṣetram (“tainted buddha land”), as in the Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka Sūtra (edited by Yamada Isshi, London, 1968, vol. 2, pp. 52, 81). It was in accordance with such usage that jingtu and huitu were established in Chinese as technical terms.9

Fujita appears to be partially incorrect here; although there are a variety of references to the purity of lands and purifying lands in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, the straightforward equivalent ‘purified buddha-field’, pariśuddhaṃ buddhakṣetram, does not occur there as claimed, but buddhakṣetra-pariśuddhi and buddhakṣetraṃ pariśodhayiṣyāmi do.10 The Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka Sūtra reference is correct, and, as will be shown below, instances of pariśuddhaṃ buddhakṣetram and other equivalents of jingtu are highly abundant in this and other prominent sūtras. English language publications of Fujita’s monumental research are translations of summaries and, not reading Japanese, I do not have access to his broader contribution. However, regardless of whether he had a more nuanced view, it seems clear that in anglophone scholarship his work has been a touchstone for the denial of Sanskrit antecedents for the expression jingtu, pure land.

It is undisputed that buddhakṣetra, or buddha-field, appears abundantly, so the main question is whether terms for purity came to be connected to buddha-fields in India. Kenneth Tanaka has suggested that Kumārajīva was the first to adopt the term ‘jingtu’, pure land, when translating the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra. Tanaka usefully observes that Kumārajīva adopted ‘pure land’ as a gloss for buddhakṣetra-pariśodhana, buddha-field purification, and for buddhakṣetra, buddha-field.11 It is true that Kumārajīva generally deploys jingtu when translating buddhakṣetra, thus changing “buddha-land” to “pure land.” So jingtu is found abundantly where expressions for purity are absent in the Sanskrit. I suspect this is one of the main reasons for the mistaken general conclusion that there are no actual Sanskrit antecedents for jingtu. However, as shown below, the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra also contains many instances of pariśuddhaṃ buddhakṣetram and other Sanskrit expressions for purified buddha-land. “Pure land” was used as a substitute for buddha-field/land, but, as discussed below, cross-referencing various Chinese translations with the extant Sanskrit shows that jingtu was also used exactly where extant Sanskrit editions contain the various antecedents for ‘purified land’ and much earlier than Kumārajīva.12

In several masterful articles discussing how the word ‘pure’ could ever have become associated with the fields of Amitābha and Akṣobhya, Jan Nattier hypothesizes that it may be the result of a mistranslation.

The peculiar fact that the word vyūha is sometimes translated as ching “pure” by early Chinese translators, most notably Chih Ch’ien and Dharmarakṣa, raises the possibility that the term ching-t’u resulted from a confusion between a Prakrit form of vyūha (viyuha) and viśuddha “pure,” a confusion that could occur most easily in the Kharoṣṭhī script, …If this line of reasoning is correct, the expression ching-t’u might well have originated as a rendering of kṣetra-vyūha (“field-array”), itself a very common expression in Mahāyāna sūtras.13

Nattier even speculates that this confusion ‘could itself be the source of the rhetoric of purifying a buddha-field, an idea which is well attested, though a compound meaning “pure land” apparently is not, in Indian Buddhist texts’.14 Nattier helpfully shows a second way, in addition to Kumārajīva’s general substitution of pure land for buddha-land, that expressions for ‘pure land’ were multiplied. However, these multiplying factors do not explain the arising of the term or its connection to Sukhāvatī, and therefore there is no need to suggest that the rhetoric of purifying a field was derived from a confusion of terms. The term ‘pure’ has a very strong and pervasive connection to the buddhakṣetras. The purification of a buddhakṣetra is of course a standard aspect of the bodhisattva path and a key element in the predictions and vows of bodhisattvas.

Verbal terms for purifying a buddha-field or the purification of a buddha-field, usually forms of buddhakṣetra-pariśuddhi, are far more pervasive than noun forms in sūtras and śāstras. But the expression ‘purified land’ as a noun is quite common. Phrases in Sanskrit for ‘pure buddha-land’, ‘pure land’, ‘impure land’, or the less compelling inversion buddha-land-purity occur frequently in major sūtras. They are found abundantly for instance in the Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka Sūtra.15 The Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra has ten examples including some of the most straightforward equivalents such as pariśuddha, suviśuddha, viśuddha kṣetraṃ and śuddha, viśuddha, or pariśuddha buddhakṣetra.16 The Daśabhūmika,17 Vimalakīrtinirdeśa [abundantly],18 Bhaiṣajyaguruvaidūryaprabharāja,19 and Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā Sūtras also contain examples.20 As noted above, the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā contains instances of the purity of a buddha-field, buddhakṣetra-pariśuddhi, as do the Aṣṭadaśāsahasrikā-prajñāpāramitā21 and Suvikrāntavikrāmiparipṛcchā Prajñāpāramitā-Sūtras.22 The Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra is also rich in expressions of the purity or purification of a field.23 The Śikṣāsamuccaya cites the Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā Sūtra with ‘pariśuddhakṣetra, very pure land.24

Another factor that contributed to the impression that the expression “pure land” is a Chinese invention without Sanskrit antecedents is the fact that the extant Sanskrit editions of the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtras, with the possible exception of the sixth century Schoyen manuscript, lack direct equivalents. Kenneth Tanaka has suggested that Sukhāvatī was only identified as a pure land25 by later Chinese commentators, adding support to the general impression that Pure Land traditions lack Indic roots.26 So it would seem that the Pure Land sūtras do not refer to pure lands and that Sukhāvatī itself only became regarded as a pure land in China. However, as noted by Fujita, the Sanskrit of the longer Sukhāvatīvyūha states that the bodhisattva Dharmākara gradually increased the purity of his Buddha-field, buddhakṣetra-pariśuddhi, explicitly identifying Sukhāvatī as a purified land.27 Gómez translated the Chinese of the longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra with the phrase “That Buddha land is pure,” but, although the Chinese may represent an earlier version, this phrase does not occur in the extant Sanskrit.28 The Sixth to Seventh Century Sanskrit fragments of the longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra found in the Schoyen collection contain passages not found in any other versions of the text. It is unclear whether this text of uncertain provenance represents a variant of the Sukhāvatīvyūha or interpolations from another Sanskrit text, but, in either case, Sukhāvatī is explicitly identified as a pure land in a Sixth to Seventh Century Sanskrit text. It also contains multiple instances of Sanskrit antecedents for jingtu including the concepts of pure, impure and mixed lands.29

The Sanskrit of the Samantabhadracaryāpraṇidhāna, one of the most well-known and recited texts in Mahāyāna literature, treats Sukhāvatī as the paradigm of a purified land. Here we find both exceedingly pure buddha-land, pariśuddha-buddhakṣetra, and simply ‘pure land’, viśuddhakṣetra, and defiled land, saṃkliṣṭakṣetra.30 This text contains an extended exposition on the purification of buddha-fields that culminates with the aspiration to be reborn in the kṣetra of Sukhāvatī and see Amitābha. It is among the long list of sūtras compiled by Gregory Schopen to demonstrate that Sukhāvatī was a generalized goal for Mahāyānists.31 There is no question that Sukhāvatī was already understood as a “pure land” in India, perhaps even the broadly held stereotype of one and that rebirth there was a general goal for Mahāyānists. The other sūtras identified by Schopen, and surely there are many yet to be identified, generally identify Sukhāvatī as Amitābha’s buddhakṣetra. Considering the message of the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra, which describes Amitābha’s land as the result of Dharmākara’s purification, and the general prevalence of buddhakṣetra-pariśodhana in the path literature, predictions, and vows, it seems certain that Sukhāvatī was understood as a pure land in India, certainly not a defiled or mixed one.32

Sanskrit equivalents clearly exist, but the question remains whether jingtu was deployed as a translation term where we find direct Sanskrit expressions for “pure land,” such as viśuddhakṣetra. As noted in Kwan’s UCLA doctoral dissertation on the Akṣobhyatathāgatavyūha Sūtra, the distinction found in many sources between pure, impure and mixed lands may be significant even in cases where we do not have the Sanskrit. Kwan, who apparently did not read Sanskrit and wrote before the recent discovery of the Sanskrit manuscript of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra, argued that it is unlikely that a translation confusion could result in the conceptual construction of pure, as well as impure and mixed lands.33 He first of all showed that jing tu occurs in early translations before Kumārajīva and that a Chinese expression for “pure buddha-land,” qing jing fo cha, occurs in the earliest Akṣobhyatathāgatavyūha34 attributed to Lokakṣema in the second century and in the earliest translation of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa attributed to Chih Ch’ien in the early third century, qing jing fo tu, where the distinction between pure and impure lands is also made.35 He further observed that the term jing t’u and its variants can be found in the works of other third-century translators like Dharmarakṣa, Moksala, and Nieh Tao-cheng.36 In an attempt to raise doubt regarding Fujita’s view that the term pure land arose merely as an interpretive substitute for buddha-kṣetra,37 Kwan notes that the Chinese translation of the Akṣobhyatathāgatavyūha generally uses fo cha, or buddha country, which could serve as a literal translation of buddha-kṣetra.38 However, only when directly referencing Abhirati’s purity does it label it as a pure land, qing jing fo cha.39 Kwan’s point is that, although it is explicit that Akṣobhya’s buddha-land is pure, “pure land” is not being used as a general substitute for buddha-land. It occurs only when the context calls for discriminating between pure and impure Buddha-lands. This suggests the translation of a particular equivalent. Not all buddha-lands are pure, and the distinction between pure and impure lands found in Sanskrit Buddhist texts, such as the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa and Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka, particularly in discussing Abhirati, supports the inference that Indic terms for pure land are the basis for the Chinese here as well. Checking the extant Sanskrit editions of these texts’ Sanskrit equivalents for pure land, I found them exactly where Kwan expected them.40

Kwan showed that the search for the earliest Chinese uses of expressions for “pure land” takes us back as far as the early translations of the second century, long before Kumārajīva.41 The use of “pure land” in this context also shows us that what may be the earliest buddha-land sūtra, the Akṣobhyatathāgatavyūha, not only describes Abhirati as a pure land, but as one among a diverse cosmos of pure and impure lands. Interestingly, in the Sanskrit texts of both the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa42 and Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka Sūtras, notable uses of Sanskrit terms for pure land refer to Abhirati, which are translated as jingtu.43 The earliest Chinese translation of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa shows no awareness of Amitābha and may represent an earlier phase when the cult of Akṣobhya was more prominent. Kwan wrote in 1985, before we had a Sanskrit manuscript of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, so he could not confirm his suspicion of a Sanskrit antecedent. But we can now see that the discussion of pure and impure lands, related to Abhirati in the earliest Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, where Kwan notes the use of jingtu, corresponds in the available Sanskrit to ‘pariśuddha buddhakṣetra.’44 As with all the Sanskrit editions referenced in this study, which are much later, we cannot know what versions of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa were the basis of the earliest translations. The Chinese representations of the early translations are also much later thirteenth century editions (See Buswell 2004). Still, the direct correlation of “very pure buddha land,” qing jing fo tu, with pariśuddha-buddhakṣetra in the currently available Sanskrit strongly suggests that, by the best evidence available, the expression jing tu originated as a literal translation of pariśuddhakṣetra in the early third century.

In Kumārajīva’s translation of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, sometimes considered the origin of the expression jing tu, he uses fo tu, fo jing tu, and jing tu to translate buddhakṣetra, where there is no Sanskrit expressing ‘pure’.45 There are also multiple instances, consistent with Nattier’s analysis, where jing appears in correlation with vyūha as an apparent mistranslation.46 However, Kumārajīva also uses fo tu jing to literally translate buddhakṣetrapariśuddhiḥ and bu-jing to render apariśuddhi, where they appear in the extant Sanskrit.47 He also uses jing tu where pariśuddhabuddhakṣetra appears and bu jing fo tu for apariśuddhabuddhakṣetra repeatedly.48 So clearly this is not the invention of an interpretive term, but one related to literal translation that then becomes broadly applied to a range of terms with similar or related meaning.

In order to maintain a practical frame for this research, I have not fully surveyed śāstric materials, but Lamotte and others showed long ago the prevalence of these terms, especially in Yogācāra literature. Some examples from śāstras include Abhisamayālaṃkāra, Madhyāntavibhāga,49 Yogācārabhūmi,50 Abhidharmasamuccaya,51 and Mahāyānasaṃgraha.52 In the Ratnāvalī, Nāgārjuna tells the king that his buddhakṣetra will be pure.53 This comes as no surprise if, as legends tell us, he is genuinely connected to the Prajñāpāramitā literature, which is abundant with talk of purified lands and purifying lands. The Ratnāvalī also expresses other key elements of Pure Land thought, including remembrance of the Buddha, the power of the name, and certainty of full enlightenment.54 Nāgārjuna’s Suhṛllekha, a text of less certain provenance memorized by Nālandā’s monks, directly refers to Amitābha in his buddhakṣetra.55

It seems hard to reconcile the general prevalence of aspirations to rebirth in Sukhāvatī, which suggests a popular ideal, the competition and “blow-back” from the cults of Śākyamuni,56 and the estimates of Amitābha and Sukhāvatī being found in one-third to one-fifth of all texts translated into Chinese57 with the perception that the cult of Amitābha was never very popular in India; or as Galen Amstutz put it: “In contrast [to Hindu bhakti], Pure Land Buddhism seems to have failed quite remarkably in India to gain any sort of long-term foothold.”58 Unless we are narrowly identifying “Pure Land Buddhism” in a way that limits it to an exclusive cult of Amitābha, pure land thought seems to have become such an integral part of normative Buddhist soteriological expectations and played such a prominent role in the Mahāyāna imagination that a great variety of textual and cultic contexts felt the need to either appropriate or compete with it.59

1.2. Part 2: Mainstream60 Cosmological Antecedents

In previously published 0research, I have shown how deeply the heaven realms and their related cosmology and soteriology inform the development of pure land thought and practice. Here we first have to get past the common idea that heavenly rebirth was a mistaken attainment. This was true only of birth in the formless realm heavens of the nikāya of devas called long lived, dīrghāyuṣka devas, for the fact that they have the longest lifespans of all devas. Such devas have no sense faculties and are incapable of receiving the Dharma. The same texts that warn against such rebirth recommend the other heavens in the same context. We need only think of the host of famous Buddhist wisdom figures, such as Buddhaghosa, Nāgasena, Anāthapiṇḍika, Hathaka, Queen Māyā, Xuanzang, Tsongkhapa, etc., who are all regarded as dwelling in the heavens, and often explicitly aspired to such rebirth in their writings, to realize that the generalization that heaven is mistaken would imply that these figures had made an error. Talk of heaven, Pali sagga-kathā, is one of the standard elements of the so-called “graduated talk” that is meant to lead to stream entry. In the abhidharma, heavenly birth is directly correlated with attainment of the jhānas. So this is not just a feature of popular or lay Buddhism, but is integrated into meditation theory. The bodhisattva bhūmis are also correlated with rebirth in ever higher heavens. The bodhisattva path runs directly through the heavens. Advanced bodhisattvas, like Śākyamuni before his descent and Maitreya, are devas whom many from Buddhaghosa to Xuanzang wished to meet in Tuṣita and whom the hagiographical tradition regards as being there now. The Pali suttas explain that ordinary worldlings ascend to heaven only to fall, but that the disciples of the Buddha are irreversible, resonant with the irreversibility of pure land birth. When we consider the name Sukhāvatī, we should remember that heavenly rebirth was called sukha-upapatti and the heaven-born were simply referred to as sukhin. The ascending heavens have ever higher levels of sukha. Super longevity, expressed in the name Amitāyus, was a basic feature of the heavens. The radiance expressed in the name Amitābha, Limitless Light, is also characteristic of the heaven born and is featured in the names of the heavens and descriptions of the devas. There is even a class of devas that are simply called “Abhā”. The physical descriptions of the delights of the pure lands are very often described in comparison to the heavens and as simply superior in all regards.61 The pure lands are direct extensions of normative mainstream cosmology and soteriology. The entire evolution of Pure Land modes of thought is so deeply continuous with early Indic precedents that it does not represent a great leap of imagination.

1.3. Part 3: Other Power

My research for Kenneth Tanaka’s “Other Power” project focuses on how the soteriological instincts of Pure land extend far deeper than Mahāyāna, and are found in early strands of the tradition.62 As mentioned above, preaching on heaven was a basic component of the standard “graduated talk.” The means of attaining such rebirth was above all the potency of the Buddha and the Saṅgha as merit fields. Through stūpa worship, buddhānusmṛti, love for Buddha, and “a single mind of faith to the marrow of one’s bones,” Ābhidharmikas such as Buddhaghosa aspired to rebirth in pure abodes, śuddha-āvāsa, and abodes of bliss, sukha-vihāra, ideal for receiving Buddhist teachings and attaining arhatship. Through devotion, one can overcome extreme bad karma and attain birth in such “happy lands of bliss” without the retrogression normally entailed by heavenly birth. The Buddha is presented as the ideal guide to such rebirth, and the engine for such attainment, even for those without merit or having great sin [i.e., without self-power], was the merit-field of the Buddha.63 Andy Rotman, writing regarding the Divyāvadāna, even suggests that those without merit are the ideal devotees. “Even a pained, destitute, beggar woman—who isn’t a Buddhist monastic, who doesn’t practice meditation, and who doesn’t read philosophical treatises—if she focuses her mind in the right way and then makes an offering toward an appropriate field of merit can achieve the highest results, even becoming a buddha.”64 This resonates with the idea of the ignorant ordinary person. The Pali Suttas offer instruction on how to attain super longevity in radiant, pure, and “happy lands” through devotion and focused deathbed aspiration practices, strikingly resonant with East Asian rituals65 [This has been recognized by Jaqueline Stone as well from the side of East Asian Studies.66]. Calling out “Namo Buddha” at the approach of death was a common practice meant to result in rescue or auspicious rebirth. The Buddha has the power to hear at great distance and when the one who calls out is either saved or attains heaven, it is attributed to the “power of the Buddha.”67

Regarding other-power in particular, and restricting myself to non-Mahāyāna sources, there is often a strong emphasis on the unworthiness of those who attain heavenly birth in these ways, which is to say that it is not through self-power that they attain birth.68 Both Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda texts speak of overcoming bad karma through single-minded faith to the marrow of one’s bones.

For instance the Abhidharmakośa tells us that:

All intelligent persons who reflect on the threefold perfection of the Tathāgatas necessarily produce a profound affection, a profound respect with respect to them.” … [1147] It is enough to know that the Buddhas…are like mines of jewels. Nevertheless fools …understand in vain the extolling of the merits of the Buddha and they do not conceive affection for the Buddha or his dharma. The wise on the contrary, understand the explanation of the qualities of the Buddha, conceiving, with respect to the buddha and his dharma, a mind of faith which penetrates to the marrow of their bones. These persons through this single mind of faith--overcome infinite bad karma,69 get excellent rebirths and attain nirvāṇa. That is why the Tathāgata is called the ultimate merit field.70

Similarly, according to the Milindapañha, ‘though a man should have lived a hundred years an evil life, yet if, at the moment of death thoughts of the Buddha should enter his mind, he will be reborn among the gods’.71 Here, with no emphasis on merit making, we see deathbed devotion of the unworthy overcoming a lifetime of evil to attain heavenly rebirth. The point here is not to draw an equation to later Pure land thought, but to show the earlier conception of otherwise unworthy persons being reborn in radiant heaven realms through faith and devotion.

Narrative literature offers abundant examples of humble souls who, though they have no other merit or meditative attainment, attain heavenly rebirth through the humblest offerings or moments of devotion and subsequently become ‘stream winners’ in the heavens. Often, they are depicted descending to the Buddha and thanking him. Occasionally this even includes animals like bats, parrots, geese and frogs. In the Mahāvastu, avadānas, Dhammapāda Commentary and jātakas we see a tradition of calling out “Homage to the Buddha,” Namo Buddhāya, in life-threatening emergencies, which may result either in survival or take advantage of the power of the maraṇacitta, dying thought, to attain heavenly birth by dying during Buddhānusmṛti as in common Theravādin death rituals. It should be noted that these sensibilities and practices are not restricted to the laity; for instance, even Buddhaghosa aspired to heavenly birth in the Visuddhimagga and according to his hagiography, he attained it through Buddhānusmṛti on his deathbed.72 Interestingly, the same phrase, “Namo Buddhāya,” may be called out when one drops a dish or merely sneezes, apparently to avert damage or illness. As one text puts it ‘The sound of the Buddha’s name is not unavailing’. So even on a mundane level, there is a sense that reverently saying “Namo Buddhāya” has a salvific effect. These practices are effectual even after the Buddha is gone in the same way that the abhidharma explains the continuing efficaciousness of caitya worship, it is through the abiding power of the Buddha as the supreme merit-field. If we take that away, all such practices by otherwise unworthy and unaccomplished persons would be for naught. Considering that the vast majority of Buddhists, including monks and nuns, never expected to attain arhatship in their lifetime, it is clear that such spiritual instincts were at the forefront of Buddhist imaginations. This is strongly supported in the Nikāyas, commentaries and the vast narrative literature.

In the Mahāyāna, the bodhisattvas’ double-edged vow to save all sentient beings is a staggering expression of self-power, but it also implicitly expresses the fact that, since countless beings have taken this vow to save us, we are also in the scope of their intentions to offer salvific “other power.” This idea is religiously explosive for the multiplication of Buddhas, bodhisattvas and their realms of influence, none of whom would deprive us of benefiting from their power by entering a world-abandoning nirvāṇa. Let me close here by discussing Nāgārjuna, the epitome of the Buddhist philosopher idealized as an icon of the rationality of Buddhism. In his Ratnāvalī, he offers the king a “Twenty Verse Prayer” that he should recite thrice daily before a buddha-image, i.e., in the context of worshipping Buddha. The King is to pray that:

In all worlds, may anxious fearful beings, become completely fearless on merely hearing my name.…

From seeing and remembering me [Skt. smaraṇa/Tib. dran pa],

may beings become clear minded, undisturbed and at ease,

From merely hearing my name,

May it be definite that they will fully awaken.73

Nāgārjuna also tells the king that his land will be pure [Tib. zhing ni dag par ‘gyur].74 He presents key components of Pure Land thought and practice: worshipful seeing and remembering [Skt. smṛ as in anusmṛti.] the Buddha, and the power of the name, whose mere hearing leads to the certainty of Buddhahood. Nāgārjuna’s worship practice contains the self-power aspiration to become a source of other-power, a buddha with a pure land, the mere sound of whose name has the salvific power to guarantee full enlightenment.

2. Conclusions

In conclusion, the expression ‘pure land’ has abundant Sanskrit antecedents that were translated as jingtu from the earliest translations long before Kumārajīva. The occurrence of jingtu was multiplied by being used as a translation term for a variety of expressions and by mistranslation, but it was also used to translate straightforward Sanskrit antecedents such as śuddhakṣetra. The Pure Land sūtras are notably lacking in the expression ‘pure land’, but they explicitly identify Sukhāvatī as a purified land, as do other Indian sources. Rebirth in the pure land of Sukhāvatī was a generalized Mahāyāna goal in India informed by the notion of the other-power of the names of buddhas and ritualized practices of remembrance and image worship based on the potency of the buddhas as merit fields. The idea of the ignorant ordinary person, i.e., those lacking in self-power, has precedents in the idea that sinful unworthy persons may attain heavenly rebirth through single-minded faith in the Buddha. Even in mainstream traditions, the heavens were pure lands of radiance, happiness and longevity, filled with great Buddhist teachers and ideal for attaining liberation. For Mahāyānists, Amitābha’s pure land Sukhāvatī was the epitome of this mode of religiosity, a generalized goal. The cosmology, nomenclature and soteriology of Pure Land Buddhism is in deep continuity with Indian traditions.