If you have a Unicode font installed you’ll be able to see the mantra with diacritics here:
Amitabha (his name means infinite radiance) is an archetypal Buddha who is supremely important in far eastern Buddhism. He represents love and compassion, and he is pictured as being the rich, warm color of the setting sun.
Amitabha is one of the so-called Dhyani-Buddhas, a set of five non-historical, symbolic figures who are arranged in a mandala. The other Buddhas in this set are Vairocana (center), Akshobhya (East), Ratnasambhava (South), and Amoghasiddhi (North).
Amitabha is dressed as a monk, with his hands in the mudra (hand gesture) of dhyana (meditation). The dhyana mudra is how one traditionally arranges one’s hands during Buddhist meditation, all those pictures of yoga practitioners with their hands on their knees notwithstanding. This hand position is very balanced and subtle; the thumbs lightly touch, neither pushing together nor falling apart.
Amitabha is of great important in far-eastern Buddhism, where he is known as Amida. He also has a Bodhisattva form called Amitayus, which means “Infinite Life.” The Bodhisattva form is, unlike the monastic Buddha-form, arrayed as a young prince with long hair and adorned with jewelry and fine silks. In some traditions Amitabha and Amitayus are seen as being essentially the same being, while in other traditions they are distinct.
Amitabha is the head of the Lotus (padma) family. This family includes some of the most famous Buddhas and bodhisattvas, including Avalokiteshvara, Padmasambhava, White Tara, and the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni.
He sits on a lotus throne decorated with his sacred animal, the peacock. In Indian folklore it is said that the peacock’s brilliant colors come from the poison of the snakes they eat. These poisons are transmuted into beauty, and likewise Amitabha’s practice turns the poison of greed into love. The connection between greed and love may not be immediately obvious, but one only has to think of the contrast between lust (desiring another person in order to gratify our appetites) and true love (valuing the uniqueness and the potential of another as a person in their own right) to appreciate the symbolism.
Amitabha was one of the first Buddhas to have his own visualization practice. There are several sutras devoted to him. The Amitayurdhyana Sutra (the Teaching of the Meditation on Amitabha) explains 16 meditations that visualize the Buddha Amitabha and his Pure Land, Sukhavati (“the realm of bliss”). This was a teaching given to Queen Vaidehi, who had been imprisoned by her evil son, Ajatasatru. The Buddha introduces the meditation thus:
Do you not know now that the Buddha Amitayus is not far from here? You should concentrate your thoughts upon and visualize that Buddha-land which is the result of pure actions. I shall now give you detailed instructions so that you and future generations who desire to practice the pure actions may attain birth in the Western Realm of Ultimate Bliss.
Other Sutras concerning Amitabha and his Pure Land are the Greater Sukhavati Vyuha and the Smaller Sukhavati Vyuha (Vyuha meaning “a detailed explanation or description”).
So you may be wondering, what is a Pure Land? A Pure Land is what we might think of as a parallel dimension or alternative universe which has been constructed by the infinite merit of a Buddha in his eons of practice. In a Pure Land everything is conducive to gaining enlightenment. You don’t have to worry about earning a living or finding the time to meditate. You’re born, full grown, in a lotus, and the teaching of the prevailing Buddha is everywhere. A Pure Land is a sort of heaven into which one can aspire to be reborn. This aspiration is the central theme of what is known as Pure Land Buddhism
Amitabha’s mantra is a variant of his name. Amideva is just the Tibetan pronunciation of Amitabha (although I was told for a long time that “deva” here meant “god”).
(As an aside, a friend of mine was ordained and given the name “Amaradeva” which means “deathless god.” Symbolically amara (deathless) signifies enlightenment and deva means “radiant” and so the name could be parsed as “one who radiates awakening.” However his colleagues at work got the understanding of “deathless god” a little mixed up and were perturbed to contemplate that they would soon be working with “The Lord of the Undead.” Such are the perils of using Indic names in the West!)
Click below to hear an MP3 version:
The final ḥ in hrīḥ has the effect of producing an echo sound. So the syllable is pronounced hree-hee.
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a thousand Thanks ! ...
Apparently not!
Even in the earliest days of Buddhism Shakyamuni was seen as just the latest (and not the last) in a lineage of Buddhas. So there was always more than one Buddha, although the past ones seemed to be seen as gone and out of reach, while Maitreya, the coming Buddha was prayed to.
It's likely that the other Buddhas like Amitabha, who are non-historical and dwell in a mythic dimension, first arose in meditators' visionary experiences. They just appeared! Presumably the did so because there was some psychological/spiritual need for them. Partly this might be because of a need for the sense of a "present" spiritual force, while Shakymuni, like the Buddhas before him, was seen as gone beyond and hence unreachable. But then why shouldn't the view of Shakyamuni simply change so that he's seen as being a source of present comfort and inspiration? Why "invent" new Buddhas to take this role?
I'd side with Sangharakshita's "Guide to the Buddhist Path" and guess that the arising of new Buddhas was more to do with the need to represent enlightenment iconographically. One figure simply isn't enough to represent all the different qualities of Enlightenment, and so you end up with a variety of Buddhas. Ultimately I think in some sense they're all the same Buddha -- like white light refracted through various prisms they reveal different "colors" of the same experience.
Anyway, if you want to stick with one Buddha that's just fine! It's just a question of what suits you.
why so many buddhas - isn't one enough ?
The purpose of studying the teachings of the Buddha is to become a Buddha. The Buddha himself said that there are innumerable Buddhas.
If we're going to be strictly accurate, the point of following the Buddha's teachings is to become enlightened, which is not the same as becoming a Buddha. What the historical Buddha said is that a Buddha is someone who rediscovers the path to enlightenment after it's been lost. The tradition at that time was that Shakyamuni was one of a lineage of Buddhas stretching back in time. Anyone who gets enlightened following Shakyamuni's teachings is an Arahant ("worthy one"), rather than a Buddha. After Shakyamuni's teachings die out, then the next Buddha (predicted to be Maitreya) will become enlightened, having rediscovered the path for himself once more.
It was the later Mahayana teachings that came up with the idea that there are innumerable Buddhas, inhabiting different world systems throughout the universe. Who knows, maybe they're right, but this isn't what the historical Buddha taught. (Unfortunately the James Webb Space Telescope isn't set up to detect enlightened beings on exoplanets.)
How is the meditation with this mantra practised? Would you give us some leads. We will be greatly obliged. What of the medicine Buddha? Has the medicine Buddha got a mantra? If yes how would it be used?
Tayata ÖM bekandze bekandze maha bekandze radza samugate soha. Medicine Buddha short mantra
Hello Mbeleck,
Apologies for the delay.
I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the visualizations of Amitabha or the Medicine Buddha. I have chanted the Amitayur Dhyana Sutra, which is an Amitabha visualization. To my surprise the text doesn't seem to be available online.
The essence of visualization practice, however, is that you visualize the figure in front of and above you, you chant the mantra, and you receive blessings flowing from the figure in the form of light that radiates from the Buddha to you. I'm sure some Tibetans would disagree with me, but I think there's no harm at all in making up your own visualization practice if you're not able to get an introduction to it from an experienced teacher.
I recently had a friend who does the Medicine Buddha practice chant the mantra for me and I plan to add something about that Buddha on the site. That's not the same as the visualization practice of course, but that's not my aim!
All the best,
Bodhipaksa
Sometimes, it seems they say Amitabha, at other times, Namo Amito Fo (Fwo in some texts), it's interesting and they'd have this going on all day, in sleep, on their phone message machines, everywhere for mindfulness.
Hi RSM,
That would be Chinese speakers you're referring to. In Chinese Amitabha is rendered as something like A-mi-t'o-p'o or O-mi-t'o-fo -- the transliterations seem to vary widely!
That's really interesting about the mantra being on phone messages. It's very reminiscent of Amitabha's Pure Land, Sukhavati, where even the sounds of the birds remind one of Awakening.
Thank you for your response, well, I've been going through some books I have, you all provide useful guidance in the English language and I have attended sessions in the Twin Cities where really I did not know what was going on at times but I thank them for their gracious kindness for letting me attend.
Thank you for this valuable service, Bodhipaksa!
I was looking on the Internet for the mantra of Buddha Amitabha, and found this:
OM AMARANI ZEWÄNTEYE SÖHA (Tibetan)
OM AMARANI JIWANTIYE SWAHA (Sanskrit)
Now I should really be confused. But further search on the Internet shows that there are numerous versions of the Amitabha mantra.
I have been reciting the Tibetan version (above) with faith and love, and it didn't seem to do any harm. Maybe faith supersedes accuracy? :)
Thank you again!
All best wishes
Rocco
Hi Rocco,
Thanks for the kind words.
According to my friend Jayarava over at Visible Mantra -- who knows way more about mantras than I do -- the correct Tibetan and Sanskrit forms of that mantra are:
oṃ ā ma ra ṇi dzi wa na te ye svā hā (Tibetan -- but svāhā would be pronounced so-hā in Tibetan)
which he says would correspond to the Sanskrit:
oṃ amaraṇi jivanatiye svāhā.
This is the mantra of Amitayus, who has a complex relationship with Amitabha. At certain times and in certain places they're regarded as the same figure, while sometimes they're seen as separate. Amitabha is portrayed as a monk, wearing robes, while Amitayus is in Bodhisattva form, that is looking like a young prince with long hair and jewelry.
Some people have argued that it's the pronunciation that's important, but more generally it's the spirit that counts. For myself, I tend to take the view that we should at least make an effort to pronounce mantras reasonably correctly, but that we shouldn't become paranoid about it.
By way of a parallel, I think Americans would do well to get out of the habit of pronouncing the French chaise longue as if it were the English "shay's lounge" (or sometimes even "chase lounge") but that it's going to ludicrous extremes to adopt a French accent in order to refer to a piece of furniture!