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Description of  Esoteric Pure Land Buddhism (Pure Land Buddhist Studies)

0824893611 pdf What, if anything, is Esoteric Pure Land Buddhism? In 1224, the medieval Japanese scholar-monk Dhan (11791252) composed The Compendium on Esoteric Mindfulness of Buddha (Himitsu nenbutsu sh), which begins with another seemingly simple question: Why is it that practitioners of mantra and meditation rely on the recitation of the name of the Buddha Amitbha? To answer this question, Dhan explored diverse areas of study spanning the whole of the East Asian Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Although contemporary scholars often study Esoteric Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism as if they were mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed schools of Buddhism, in the present volume Aaron Proffitt examines Dhans Compendium in the context of the eastward flow of Mahayana Buddhism from India to Japan and uncovers Mahayana Buddhists employing multiple, overlapping, so-called esoteric approaches along the path to awakening. Proffitt divides his study into two parts. In Part I he considers how early Buddhologists, working under colonialism, first constructed Mahayana Buddhism, Pure Land Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism as discrete fields of inquiry. He then surveys the flow of Indian Buddhist spells, Read more