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DANIELA. GETZPURE LANDS
The English term Pure Landis used as a handy equiv-
alent for the East Asian notion of a purified buddha-
field, a large extent of space made pure and beautiful
by the presence of a BUDDHAor BODHISATTVA. In its
specific usage the phrase “the Pure Land” is one such
purified world, the buddha-field of the Buddha
AMITABHA. The English term has no Indian antecedent
and is a direct translation of Chinese jingtu(pure field,
pure land), or its Japanese equivalent jodo.
Buddha-fields, pure and impure
Buddhist cosmology depicts a universe formed of mul-
tiple worlds (lokadhatu) of varying sizes and charac-
teristics. Some of these worlds have never had a
buddha, but others are the special fields of practice
(ksetra) of individual bodhisattvas, who, upon attain-
ing awakening, will make this territory the field within
which they exert their saving power and share their
immeasurable merit in their role as perfect buddhas.
Called buddha-fields(buddhaksetra), these worlds
are made beautiful and perfect by the meritorious
power of the buddhas that inhabit them and by the
power of that buddha’s solemn bodhisattva vows.
However, buddha-fields may have varying spiritual cli-
mates or degrees of perfection, and they are accord-
ingly classified as pureor mixed.Worlds where the
saving action of a buddha has not yet had its effect, or
those that lack a buddha and are therefore technically
not yet buddha-fields, are sometimes known as im-
pureworlds. The world we inhabit, known as the Sa-
ha World, is considered one such imperfect world,
despite the effects of S ́akyamuni’s awakening and min-
istry. Other worlds have been completely “purified”
by various buddhas and bodhisattvas, and are held as
models of what a fully purified world, a pure land,
would be.
As long as a bodhisattva is still seeking full awak-
ening, his “field” is not a “pure land”; thus, pureor pu-
rifieddenote the result of a long process by which the
bodhisattva transforms a common world into a par-
adise or an ideal and marvel-filled world. This realm
is “pure” in the sense that evil, disease, and suffering
have been eliminated by the bodhisattva’s vows and
actions; but it is also said that the field is “adorned”
because it is made rich and beautiful with extraordi-
nary marvels and treasures (jewel trees, charming
ponds, spiritually uplifting music, etc.). Such a perfect
world is a paradise-like place in which believers hope
to be reborn after they die at the end of their present
life of suffering.
Those pure lands are places of maximum bliss (Chi-
nese, jile; Japanese, gokuraku), paradisiacal lands, but
they must be distinguished from other Indian notions
of heavenly and earthly paradises. The imagery used to
describe pure lands is indeed similar to the language
used to describe the heavenly blissful realms of the gods
(devaloka), the royal cities of universal monarchs, and
the carefree life in the mythical land of Uttarakuru.
However, unlike a pure land, these other paradisiacal
realms are not completely free from the pains of RE-
BIRTH, nor are they places favorable to the attainment
of the final rest of NIRVANA.Buddhist paradises
The conception of a pure land is also different from
Western notions of paradise: A pure land is not tech-
nically a place of pristine innocence before “the Fall,”
nor is it the place or time for the souls or resurrected
bodies of the blessed to dwell with a creator after death
or after the restoration of the original paradise at the
end of time. Pure lands are worlds parallel to ours, ex-
isting at the same time as our world, but perfected for
the express purpose of allowing living beings the op-
portunity to pursue liberation in a favorable environ-
ment. They are places where one can escape from (in
fact one will dwell outside of) the six REALMS OF EXIS-
TENCEdescribed in Buddhist COSMOLOGY. Perhaps one
point of similarity to some Western conceptions ofPURELANDS