SOTERIOLOGY AND PANTHEON OF THE MAHAYANA 115Amitabha, presiding over the world-realm Sukhavati a trillion Buddha-fields
away to the west, a realm endowed with all the virtues he had vowed that it
would have.
In India, Amitabha never became as popular as Sakyamuni. He is not very
frequently represented in Indian art. Chinese pilgrims in the seventh century,
however, reported that the worship of Amitabha was widespread in India. In
the Lotus Sutra and in Tantrism, Amitabha figures as one of the Five Tathagatas
who rule the four cardinal points and the center, but there is no separate
Amitabha sect in Tibet. The Far East was where the Buddha of the Western
paradise became a dominant focus of reverence.
5.5.5 Vairocana
Vairocana (Shining Out) is an epithet of the sun. Originally it was simply an
epithet of Sakyamuni, but in due course the name acquired separate identity
as a celestial Buddha. In the Tantric set of the Five Tathagatas, he occupies the
center, which is Sakyamuni's position in the exoteric Mahayana ma~J-qala (sa-
cred circle, cosmoplan). The Chinese Hua-yen (see Section 8.5.2) view that
Vairocana is the Dharma-body of Sakyamuni thus reaffirms the identity from
which Vairocana was historically derived.
The Mahiivairocana Sutra, a Yoga Tantra (see Section 6.3.2) composed in
about the seventh century, consists ofVairocana's revelations to the Tantric
equivalents ofbodhisattvas. Vairocana did not become popular either in art or
in cult until the seventh century, when his role as Sakyamuni's transcendental
counterpart gave him preeminence in the Tantric cosmoplans and their asso-
ciated rites.
Mahiivairocana (Great Resplendent One)-a form equated with the cosmos
as a whole-appears both in the Hua-yen school of China and the Shingon
school ofJapan (see Section 10.4). Called Dainichi (Great Sun) in Japanese, he
is conceived of as the "Cosmos as Buddha," whose body, speech, and mind
make up the universe.5.5.6 Bhai~ajyaguru-The Healing Buddha
(Strong EB, sec. 5.4.2)The healing Buddha, Bhai~ajyaguru (Master of Healing), or Bhai~ajyaraja
(King of Healing), appeared late in the Mahayana pantheon. Other bod-
hisattvas and Buddhas were concerned with healing also, but this Buddha's
prime focus was on all aspects of the art; in Tibet he was the patron of medi-
cine and monastic physicians. Two Sutras were written establishing his cult:
the Bhai~ajyaguru Sutra, of which a Sanskrit version exists, and the Saptabuddha
SUtra. Both Sutras exist in Chinese and Tibetan translations, but in India no
images ofBhai~ajyaguru predate the Bhai~ajyaguru Sutra's transmission to China
by the fourth century C.E. This suggests a central Asian origin of his cult that
later spread to India to be noticed by Santideva (circa 650-750 C.E.) ofNa-
lancla University.