Oxford Dictionary of World Mythology

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Amida-nyorai

Amida-nyorai East Asia
Of all the deities in the Japanese Buddhist pantheon ‘the Buddha of Infinite Light’ approaches closest to the West Asian and European idea of an exalted yet personal god. Amida-nyorai, the Japanese Amitabha, is the great refuge that the devotee thinks of at the moment of death.

Strictly speaking, Buddhism denies a permanent resting-place to the soul and teaches a perpetual process of change in an individual's moral character. But this continuity, the endless round of rebirth caused by karma, sin, has come to encompass in Mahayana tradition numerous realms of existence, from highest heavens to nethermost hells. Japanese mythology is full of details about the pilgrimage of the soul to and from these realms, and the spirits of those who hover between them, perhaps as Tengus. Most popular are the legends clustered round the Paradise of the Pure Land, Gokuraku Jodo, the realm of Amida-nyorai. This celestial abode has a...

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