Otani University Academic Repository / 大谷大学学術情報リポジトリ


PRINCE SH7TOKU AT AGE TWO
!e sculpture, “Prince Sh"toku at Age Two,” depicts Sh"toku Taishi 聖徳太子 
(574–622) with his hands placed in prayer. Some seventy dedicatory objects, includ-
ing forty-8ve documents, had been placed within it at the time of its dedication, 
believed to be in 1292. !e sculpture arrived in the United States in 1936. Prelimi-
nary research at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston seems to have been stalled by the 
deterioration in U.S.-Japan relations. !e sculpture came to the Fogg Museum at 
Harvard University (now Harvard Art Museums) in 1979, following publication 
of John M. Rosen8eld’s English-language article on the sculpture ten years earlier. 
Unfortunately, research stalled once again as the article did not circulate widely in 
Japan. Since 2016, an international, interdisciplinary project on the sculpture, now 
involving scholars in a wide variety of disciplines on three continents, has been 
investigating the sculpture and its contents. At Harvard University, Rachel Saun-
ders, Angela Chang, Penley Knipe (Harvard Art Museums), Greg Lin (Harvard 
Center for Nanoscale Systems), Melissa McCormick, and Ry$ichi Abé (East Asian 
Languages and Civilizations) continue to work with Chikamoto Kensuke, Abé 
Yasuro, Abé Mika (Nagoya University), Seya Ai (Tokyo National Museum), and 
Seya Takayuki (Kanazawa Bunko) on the project.
!e statue is made of Japanese cypress (hinoki 檜) and is comprised of assembled 
woodblock construction with polychromy and rock-crystal inlaid eyes. It measures 
H. 67.9 9 W. 24.8 9 D. 22.9 cm. Photographs of most of the dedicatory objects are 
available online at the Harvard Art Museums website (accession number 2019.122): 
https://harvardartmuseums.org/exhibitions/5756/prince-shotoku-the-secrets 
-within.
Prince Sh!toku at Age Two (Sh!toku Taishi Nisaiz!), Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. 
Sackler Museum, Partial and promised gift of Walter C. Sedgwick in memory of Ellery 
Sedgwick Sr. and Ellery Sedgwick Jr., Photo©President and Fellows of Harvard College, 
2019.122.


FRONTISPIECE Prince Shōtoku at Age Two

Ryoze, Wada

Wada, Ryoze

$e Eastern Buddhist 2/1: 93–124
©2022 !e Eastern Buddhist Society
BOOK REVIEWS
Pure Lands in Asian Texts and Contexts: An Anthology. Edited by Georgios T. Halkias 
and Richard K. Payne. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2019. x + 795 pages. 
Hardcover. ISBN-13: 978-0-8248-7309-7.
RE2K) W+&+ 
!is anthology presents a vast array of Asian Buddhist texts translated into English, 
each of which is preceded by a succinct introduction by its translator. As the title indi-
cates, the common feature running through the selected sources is that all of them 
speak of a pure land, or pure lands, in their respective contexts. It must be emphasized 
that, throughout this volume, the worship of the Buddha Amit#bha/Amit#yus and his 
Land of Bliss (Sukh#vatC) are treated as one variation, not as the standard, of what is 
called “Pure Land Buddhism.” !e two editors, Georgios T. Halkias and Richard K. 
Payne, claim that the de8nitive quali8cation of Pure Land Buddhism is “the shared 
idea of a spatially located land, often identi8ed as a postmortem goal of practice, and 
which is the special domain of a buddha or other similar 8gure” (p. 14). On this basis, 
this work is carefully designed to cover a rich variety of pure lands including, but 
importantly not limited to that of Amit#bha. One of the primary objectives of this 
self-conscious e3ort is to demonstrate the diversity, ubiquity, and signi8cance of Pure 
Land Buddhism which could otherwise be easily underestimated or even disregarded. 
Accordingly, this huge anthology opens with a methodologically critical introduc-
tion by the editors, followed by the individual sources taken up in the subsequent 
twenty-six chapters. Another notable feature of the editorial strategies employed in 
this collection is that the sources are organized not on a geopolitical basis but instead 
under six thematic categories that form the six-fold structure of the book: I. “Ritual 
Practices,” II. “Contemplative Visualizations,” III. “Doctrinal Expositions,” IV. “Life-
Writing and Poetry,” V. “Ethical and Aesthetic Explications,” and VI. “Worlds beyond 
Sukh#vatC.” By locating issues of doctrine on the same level as those of other kinds of 
categories such as practices and beliefs, this con8guration by itself plays a vital role in 
challenging the assumed privileged position of the intellectual aspects of Buddhism in 
academia. !e editors also attach an overview that encapsulates the theme and content 
of each of the six parts. 
T H E  E A S T E R N  B U D D H I S T  2 ,  194
!e 8rst 8ve chapters, which constitute part I, deal with ritual texts and contexts 
revolving around the idea of birth in a buddha 8eld. Not only does this part reveal 
the multiplicity of the Pure Land beliefs extending beyond Amit#bha and the Land of 
Bliss, but the sources translated here also attest to the historical signi8cance of a range 
of practices to accomplish one’s birth in a pure land: funerary rites in connection with 
buddha lands of the ten directions (ch. 1), visualization of Mah#vairocana’s pure land 
(ch. 2), a tantric 8re ritual centered on Akṣobhya (ch. 3), contemplation of Amit#bha 
(ch. 4), and a series of tantric practices leading up to the empowerment of Amit#bha (ch. 
5). Chapters 2, 3, and 5, in particular, present central factors that make this anthology 
unique as they suggest a closer association between the Pure Land strands under discus-
sion and esoteric Buddhist traditions than has previously been acknowledged. 
Esoteric understandings of pure lands are further explored in the next four chapters 
contained in part II. It is not immediately clear how this second part is distinguished 
from the previous one since both largely pertain to ritual practices involving the ele-
ment of visualization. Despite the title, “Contemplative Visualizations,” the emphasis 
of the second part is not necessarily put on the distinctive implications of those speci8c 
types of practices vis-à-vis the ritualistic ones displayed in the 8rst part of the book. 
Rather, the second part’s collection of four texts e3ectively shows the existence of 
widespread discourse on buddha realms in so-called esoteric Buddhist lineages in India 
(ch. 1) and Tibet (chs. 1 and 2), as well as in East Asian countries including China (ch. 
3) and Japan (ch. 4). From a paradigmatic perspective, Aaron P. Pro;tt’s statement in 
the fourth chapter is thought-provoking: “‘Esoteric Buddhism’ and ‘Pure Land Bud-
dhism’ functioned as overlapping and <uid areas of concern and specialization within 
a heterogeneous East Asian Mah#y#na Buddhist environment” (p. 272). !is does not 
simply shed light on dynamic linkages between the two types of Buddhism but prob-
lematizes the validity of the presumed distinction between the two in the 8rst place.
Organized under the classical theme, “Doctrinal Expositions,” part III consists of 
8ve chapters looking at relatively late interpretations of Pure Land doctrine with the 
exception of the 8nal one: late Ming 明 China (ch. 1), modern Japan (chs. 2, 3, and 
4), and seventh-century Korea (ch. 5). !e general aim of part III, therefore, is not so 
much to trace the doctrinal development of Pure Land teachings as to draw our atten-
tion to creative expositions through which Asian Buddhist thinkers sought to situate 
Pure Land conceptions in speci8c social and intellectual circumstances. !e most out-
standing example in this regard is found in the third chapter, wherein Michihiro Ama 
introduces a Japanese minster’s attempt to translate important Western events like 
!anksgiving and Christmas into Buddhist cultural contexts.
As the title of part IV—“Life-Writing and Poetry”—indicates, these two di3erent 
types of writings are taken up in this section. !e 8rst two chapters refer to hagio-
graphical records from medieval Japan (ch. 1) and contemporary China (ch. 2), while 
B O O K  R E V I E W S 95
the other two chapters look at poems from Dunhuang, possibly during the Tibetan 
occupation (ch. 3), and Yuan 元 China (ch. 4). Taken as a whole, they aim to pro-
vide pragmatic, as opposed to philosophical, testimony to the soteriological power of 
what is generally classi8ed as Pure Land praxis. Reciting the name of Amit#bha, for 
instance, is recommended in the two poetic pieces presented in the third and fourth 
chapters. !is could be read as examples of the syncretism of Pure Land and Tibetan 
esoteric Buddhism, as well as that of Pure Land and Chinese Chan 禅 Buddhism. 
Nevertheless, those texts can also serve as evidence against the independent entity of 
the retrospectively de8ned “Pure Land teachings,” instead illustrating universal inter-
est in the Pure Land across conventional dogmatic boundaries. 
From the standpoint of geographical and temporal diversity, the 8fth part is atypical 
of this volume in that modern Japanese sources are dominant. Of the 8ve chapters in 
part V, four introduce modern Japanese works: two discuss Shin 真 Buddhist ethics (chs. 
1 and 2); one entails a Buddhist aesthetics inspired by Pure Land ideas (ch. 3); and 
one presents a this-worldly pure land based on the Lotus Sutra (ch. 5). !e remaining 
one, chapter 4, deals with a late twelfth-century Chinese Buddhist treatise that tries 
to explain a harmonious relationship between Pure Land faith and Confucian values. 
A common concern shared among these texts is how to construe otherworldly Bud-
dhist expressions in such a way that they impact the reality of this world not only on 
an individual level but, writ large, on a social scale as well. In this part, the reader will 
8nd valuable hermeneutical techniques and critical problems involved in an endeavor 
to apply 8gurative Buddhist teachings to actual, concrete situations.
!e last part of this anthology extends the scope of the volume to include quasi-
Pure Land discourses observed in Chinese Daoism (ch. 1), Chinese Manichaeism (ch. 
2), and, lastly, Tibetan and Mongolian beliefs associated with the land of =ambhala (ch. 
3). To be more speci8c, the three chapters in this part translate scriptural texts, includ-
ing non-Buddhist texts, and examine the appropriation of Pure Land ideas where Bud-
dhist pure lands are identi8ed with Daoist heavens, such as the Heavens of the Highest 
Purity, the Manichaean Realm of Light, and =ambhala as a paradisiacal yet human 
realm. It should not be taken for granted that these matters appear in a book whose 
focus is on Pure Land Buddhism. !ey have become proper topics for consideration 
thanks to a broad de8nition of “a Pure Land idea,” as exempli8ed by Gábor Kósa’s 
depiction of it in chapter 2 as “any devotional aspiration to be reborn in a pure land” (p. 
710). In this sense, part VI o3ers exemplary case studies and paves the way for further 
research on Pure Land issues of an interreligious nature.
Collectively, the six themes sketched above provide the reader with an abundance of 
new ways to investigate the traditional subject of “Pure Land Buddhism,” prompting 
us to look afresh at diversi8ed phenomena that have been undervalued or overlooked 
in the conventional de8nitions of “Pure Land Buddhism.” Ironically, however, precisely 
T H E  E A S T E R N  B U D D H I S T  2 ,  196
because of its intentional avoidance of the Japanese Buddhist sectarian perspectives 
underpinning a certain level of ideological unity of so-called Pure Land Buddhism, 
this anthology consequently questions the necessity of the very category under which 
the heterogenous sources are gathered. !e editors’ introduction brie<y addresses this 
dilemma, stating that the category is “heuristically” useful in facilitating “comparative 
study and critical dialogue” (p. 5). It is also true that the editors propose an expansive, 
alternative de8nition of “Pure Land Buddhism,” which I cited in the 8rst paragraph of 
this review. Nevertheless, a more concrete and detailed discussion based on the actual 
materials in this volume, such as what kind of unique conclusions can be drawn from 
a comparative examination of such a variety of texts, would more directly clarify the 
analytical e3ectiveness of “Pure Land Buddhism” as a notion constructed for academic 
purposes; the diversity and ubiquity of the Pure Land elements foregrounded through-
out this collection are somewhat too general to fully understand the possibilities of the 
category. 
Another problem in this regard is that the reasoning underlying this particular six-
fold grouping of themes is not clearly given. !ere are other possible ways of arranging 
the materials even if we do not prioritize a geopolitical categorization. Further explana-
tion of the logic behind the “positive” employment of the sixfold scheme would make 
this entire project more convincing. Indeed, on occasion, it is ambiguous as to why a 
given source has been placed in its particular thematic section. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 
in part III and chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 in part V, for example, overlap with each other in 
the sense that they are relatively recent innovative exegeses aiming to remake a meaning-
ful connection between seemingly otherworldly concepts and this world. Additionally, 
some of the section titles obscure the distinctive features of the corresponding themes. 
!e titles of part I, “Ritual Practices,” and part VI, “Worlds beyond Sukh#vatC,” desig-
nate, as a matter of course, the common nature of the texts in each of these parts respec-
tively. However, these topics are not limited to these parts of the volume alone. Ritual 
aspects and pure lands other than Sukh#vatC are widely addressed in the other parts as 
well, and in this sense, they seem to represent overarching foci of the entire project.
Despite these di;culties, the considerable value of Pure Lands in Asian Texts and 
Contexts: An Anthology cannot be underestimated. !is is a groundbreaking work 
both for its overall structure as well as for its carefully selected sources. Together these 
represent a refreshing approach to Pure Land Buddhism that is not founded upon 
such usual organizing principles as geopolitical, sectarian, or doctrinal boundaries. 
!is genre-based anthology is recommended for a broader range of readers than those 
working on Chinese and/or Japanese Pure Land traditions. In addition to such “regular” 
readers, those interested in esoteric forms of Buddhism (notably those found in Tibet) 
will also greatly bene8t both from the methodological re<ections, as well as the so-
called esoteric Buddhist texts, discussed in this volume.


BOOK REVIEWS Georgios T. Halkias and Richard K. Payne, editors. Pure Lands in Asian Texts and Contexts: An Anthology

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