The Pure Land tradition synthesized its story from a number of scriptural sources, the most important of which are the “three Pure Land sūtras.” These are:
(1) The Larger Sukhāvatī-vyūha Sūtra or the Sūtra on Immeasurable Life (Taishō 360), which we will abbreviate as the Larger Sūtra.
This sūtra provides the main outline of the story of the bodhisattva Dharmākara and his vows. A Sanskrit version still exists, and this scripture was so popular in early Chinese Buddhism that it was translated no fewer than six times. Five translations are still available in the Chinese Buddhist canon, and among them the version traditionally attributed to Saṃghavarman in 262 C.E. remains the most popular.
Interestingly, only this version has the forty-eight vows in full; the others have twenty-four or thirty-six, showing that the original Indian texts probably developed over time.
It also describes three levels of rebirth in the Pure Land according to the difficulty of the practices undertaken by devotees prior to their deaths.
(2) The second is the smaller Sukhāvatī-vyūha Sūtra, or the Amitābha Sūtra (Taishō 366). We will refer to this text as the Smaller Sūtra.
The worldview and framework of this scripture coheres very well with the Larger Sūtra, and like its companion text, a Sanskrit original is still extant.
Translated by the famous central Asian monk Kumārajīva around 402 C.E., it mainly describes all the marvelous features of the Pure Land and serves as the basis for later artistic depictions.
Because it is very brief, monks and nuns throughout East Asia regularly chant it during their morning service.
(3) The third is the Sūtra on the Contemplation of Amitāyus (Taishō 365), which we will shorten to the Contemplation Sūtra.
Tradition holds that Kālayaśas, another central Asian monk, translated it somewhere between 424 and 442 C.E., but no Sanskrit original has ever appeared, and most scholars believe it was composed in central Asia or China.
It mainly teaches a complex set of visualizations by which one may gain a vision of Amitābha, his land, and his retinue, but the tradition also finds in it resources for devotees who require a simpler practice.
In addition, the Contemplation Sūtra describes a hierarchy of nine levels of rebirth in the Pure Land that is cited much more commonly than the three levels of the Larger Sūtra.
This scheme organizes rebirths into three “grades”, each subdivided into three “levels”, and allows that even the most evil and unaccomplished people may achieve the Pure Land when they die.
One of the most significant passages for the development of Pure Land thought occurs in the description of the fate of those who occupy the “lowest grade, lowest level”:
Those who attain birth on the lowest level of the lowest grade are the sentient beings who commit such evils as the five grave offenses, the ten evil acts, and all kinds of immorality … When he is about to die, he may meet a good teacher, who consoles him in various ways … but he is too tormented by pain to do so. The good teacher then advises him, “If you cannot concentrate on the Buddha then you should say instead, ‘Homage to Amitāyus Buddha.’ ” In this way, he sincerely and continuously says, “Homage to Amitāyus Buddha” ten times … When he comes to die, he sees before him a golden lotus flower like the disk of the sun, and in an instant he is born within a lotus bud in the Land of Utmost Bliss.
This passage not only overrode the Larger Sūtra’s stipulation that those who slander the dharma and commit the five evil deeds cannot go to the Pure Land, it also says they can do so merely by reciting a salutation to Amitābha ten times.
No wonder that the second-century thinker Nāgārjuna called the search for rebirth in the Land of Utmost Bliss an “easy path.”
As I mentioned in the preface, this may seem out of step with the Buddha’s original teaching, and you may be wondering how Buddhism evolved from a quest for liberation through a businesslike regime of self-discipline and study to one in which a buddha other than the historical Śākyamuni saves people who simply call his name ten times. In the next chapter, we will look at some developments in Mahayana Buddhism that facilitated this transition, …
Source: Jones, Charles B. Pure Land: History, Tradition, and Practice. Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala Publications, 2021.
The above text is excerpted from Chapter 1 (“The Story of Amitabha and His Pure Land”) of the book.
The Pure Land tradition developed from a number of scriptural sources, the most important of which are the “three Pure Land sūtras.” These are:
(1) Sutra of Immeasurable Life (Larger Sutra)
(2) Amitabha Sutra (Smaller Sutra)
(3) Contemplation Sutra
(Charles B. Jones, Pure Land: History, Tradition, and Practice)