Nembutsu

“The notion of Amida Buddha can be identified with a stream of Mahayana Buddhist thought that arose around the first century of the Common Era—some five hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha. On this question there remain many unresolved issues from an academic standpoint, although scholarly research has made numerous recent advances in this area. Speaking only from my own understanding, it appears that after his death Shakyamuni’s body was cremated by his followers, who then divided the bones and ashes into eight parts and passed them on to other Buddhist followers. Stupas were then constructed to house the relics, which became the objects of Buddhist worship. With the passing of time, these stupas multiplied, and groups of Buddhist followers were formed, centering on such stupa worship. Undoubtedly, such groups must have included renunciant monks. In large part, however, the groups were made up of lay devotees, whose role it was to worship and maintain the stupas. Before long people began making pilgrimages to the stupas, and a belief system centered on stupa worship was born. Gradually, within this current of beliefs and practices, a form of Shakyamuni worship came to be promoted. It was based on the notion that, although Shakyamuni Buddha left this world at the age of eighty, his life and the enlightened content of his life eternally continue to guide beings. As a result of this, the concrete human image of Shakyamuni eventually disappeared, and the idea of his new Buddha-body—Amida Buddha—was born. This then developed into the worship of Amida Buddha.

Amida Buddha is said to be the Buddha of immeasurable light (Amitabha) and immeasurable life (Amitayus). The basis for this idea rests in ideas and expressions in praise of Shakyamuni Buddha’s virtues found in stories about the Buddha’s life. According to them, Shakyamuni might have passed on from this world, but his true life is immeasurable, and his teaching—his light—has unlimited reach. Hence, he continues to guide beings even now. The concepts extolling the eternal nature of Shakyamuni’s life (his vertical axis) and the unlimited breadth of his light (his horizontal axis) eventually developed into the idea of a new and independent Buddha-body. We can see, for instance, that Shakyamuni’s beginnings as a prince overlaps with the narrative of the Larger Sutra, in which the Bodhisattva Dharmakara is said to have originally been a king. Or, as another example, the Larger Sutra tells of fifty-three Buddhas that existed prior to Amida, starting with a Tathagata named “Dipamkara,” which is identical to the name of the Buddha said to have been Shakyamuni’s teacher in the distant past. In this way, we can see that on many points the Amida narrative must have been based on the life story of Shakyamuni. It is quite evident that the idea of Amida Buddha arose as an extension and sublimation of Shakyamuni worship."

Takamaro Shigaraki