A general summary of the pure land Buddhism

We all have known that pure land teaching is one of the most preform teaching of the
Mahayana Buddhism. According to the Mahayanist masters point of views, which opposed to
the Theravada points of view, there are the existence of a large numbers of various Buddhas
and each Buddha has their own pure land. Amount them the Amitabha and his Sukhavati was
regarded to be the most popular in the cycle of the Mahayanist society. And almost all of the
Mahayana scriptural texts devoted to Amitabha and his Sukhavati.

Though, pure land belief was flourishing in China land, but it was initially started and
grew in India. Gradually, it spared to China, with the help of the Silk Road the missionary
monks. Regarding to the date of the first introduction of the Buddhism in China, there are
some controversial disputes.

In the preface to the sutra of forty-two sections, mon-tzu’s li-hun lun, volume two of
the chu-san-tsang chi-chi, and volume one of the liang kao-seng chuan, they all placed the
first introduction of Buddhism, during the ring of the emperor Ming (57-75 AD) of later Han
dynasty. In the first volume of li-tai san-pao-chi and in the last volume of fa-lin’s po-hsieh
lun (composed in the tang dynasty), noted the first introduction during the reign of Chin Shih-
huang-ti (246 to210BC). The thirtieth volume of the wei-chih, “monograph on the eastern
barbarians”, also placed the first introduction of Buddha’s teaching during the reign of the
emperor Ai (7 to 1 BC). However, most of the scholars believed that 7-1 BC is the most
reliable date of all and from this time onwards, Buddhism spread widely throughout China.

The pratyupanna-samadhi sutra (pan-shou san-mei ching) translated by Lokasema,

during the reign of the later Han dynasty emperor ling, was regarded to be the first
appearance of what was to develop into pure land teaching. This translation was followed by
the work of Wu Chih-ien and the western Chin dynasty monk Chu fa-huo, who translated the
ta o-mi-to ching. And also, Ping-teng-chueh ching was translated by kumarajiva in Yao-chin
dynasty. In this way, different texts appeared one after the other and found greater numbers
of devotees.

During the Chin dynasty, Tse Duke of chueh was regarded to be the first one who
seeking rebirth in the western pure land. From this time onward, large numbers of people are
described as longing for rebirth. Among those people, Hui-yuan, the eastern Chin dynasty
scholar-monk was the most popular person and the later pure land lineages in China regarded
him as their first patriarchal master. It is with him that the pure land movement begins to be a
significant religious movement.

Later on, Hui-yuan founded the white lotus society. This society was a meditation
group whose followers would meditate on the form of the Buddha Amitabha in an attempt to
realize nien-fo san-mei (Buddha anusmrti-samadhi). Regarding to this Samadhi, if a person
was able to see the form of the Buddha, this was a guarantee that he would eventually be
reborn in the pure land.

From the period of the Liu-sung dynasty onward, the pure land faith spread widely
throughout China land. However, due to the founding of the Ching dynasty, the capital of
china was moved to the north to the city of Yen-ching and the advent of the second world war
and the subsequent socialist revolution on the Chinese mainland, much Buddhist work came
to be ceased.