heavenly glory is the idea that pure lands are commu-
nities of saints, and that their inhabitants may influ-
ence the course of life in our world—primarily through
the saving power of the buddha presiding over the pure
land, but also because, as bodhisattvas, the inhabitants
of a pure land may descend upon our lowly world or
travel outside the pure land to worship buddhas and
save SENTIENT BEINGSin many faraway universes.
Although the purification of a world system is the
work of only one bodhisattva, and there can be only
one buddha presiding over a pure land, the number of
pure lands in the universe is as great as many times the
grains of sand in the Ganges River. Scriptural texts,
however, usually mention only ten pure lands by name,
one for each of the main and intermediate points of
the compass, and at the zenith and the nadir. But a
more common number of pure lands is four, one for
each of the main directions of the compass.
Only a few of these lands seem to have a clear
mythology associated with a system of worship and be-
lief. Among the purified fields associated with specific
myths and texts or connected to special practices one
must mention above all the western Pure Land of Bud-
dha Amitabha, called Sukhavat(Blissful). But also of
historical significance are the eastern Pure Land of
AKSOBHYA, Abhirati (Enchantment), and the eastern
land of Bhaisajyaguru, Vaiduryanirbhasa (Shining like
Beryl). Still, the most famous is unquestionably Ami-
tabha’s Sukhavat; it is the most common referent of
the phrase “the Pure Land” (Chinese, jingtu; Japanese,
jodo,or for that matter, jileand gokuraku). Thus, the
hope of being reborn in Amitabha’s Pure Land is of-
ten synonymous with “Pure Land belief.”
The Buddha Amitabha (Japanese, Amida) obtained
this pure land as the result of the solemn vows (in East
Asia traditionally counted as forty-eight) he made
when, as the bodhisattva Dharmakara, he promised to
seek enlightenment in order to create a paradise where
those who heard his name and believed in him could
be reborn. The hope of rebirth in Sukhavatand faith
in Amitabha’s saving grace, like beliefs and practices
associated with other pure lands, is firmly grounded in
generalized MAHAYANAbeliefs such as the bodhisattva
vows, the saving powers of buddhas and bodhisattvas,
the theme of bodhisattvas traveling to visit distant
buddha-fields where they worship myriad buddhas,
and the power of the transfer of merit.
Sukhavatis depicted as a paradise, that is, a garden-
like enclosure, the inhabitants of which know nothing
but beauty and bliss. In marvelous gardens and groves,
birds and plants preach the dharma, and the presence
of the Buddha Amitabha is accessible to living beings
in varying degrees and guarantees the effortless attain-
ment of nirvana. Living beings from impure lands who
hear the name of the Buddha Amitabha and have faith
in his vows will be reborn in his pure land immedi-
ately after they die in their own world.
In some cases the mythology allows for pure lands
that are not technically purified worlds—thus, MAI-
TREYA, the buddha of the future, transforms the place
he inhabits into a pure land by virtue of his presence.
Yet his place of dwelling forms part of our world, for
it is the heaven of the deities known as Tusita, located
among the heavenly planes that rise above Mount
Meru; once reborn in this world Maitreya will inhabit
a royal city, Ketumat, that also shares some features
with conceptions of the pure lands. East Asian Bud-
dhists have identified other locations in our world as
technically pure lands; this is the case, for instance, of
the Vulture Peak near Rajagrha, where it is said that
S ́akyamuni preached the Mahayana sutras, or of
Avalokites ́vara’s mythic island dwelling called Potalaka.
Additionally, the literature mentions many more ab-
stract notions of purified worlds, such as Vairocana’s
Lotus Pure Land.Imagining pure worlds
Of course, even pure lands presumed to be outside our
world are given a concrete, if mythical, location
(Sukhavatis trillions of worlds away), and they have
very concrete topographic and material characteristics
(Sukhavatis completely flat, Abhirati has mountains).
Yet, this does not preclude metaphoric or atopic un-
derstandings of the reality of the pure land. Many Bud-
dhists have rejected or qualified the notion of a distant
pure land, or at the very least have emphasized the im-
portance of “purifying” or transforming our own
world. Some equate the purification of one’s own mind
with the purification of society at large, so that this,
our world of suffering and conflict, can or should be-
come the pure land. These views were particularly im-
portant in the development of traditions fusing
meditation with FAITHin the pure land, but the idea
of the pure land as a state in this life rather than, or in
addition to, being a distant place recurs throughout
the history of Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhists have ar-
gued at times that our world can be a pure land, either
by virtue of the power of a pure mind (a key concept
in the Vimalaklrtinirdes ́a), or because the practice of
the dharma can transform a human society into a holy
land (a common theme in the mythology of BuddhismPURELANDS