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Luminous Bliss: A Religious History of Pure Land Literature in Tibet . By Georgios T. Halkias . Pure Land Buddhist Studies Series, Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press , 2013. Pp. 335. ISBN 10: 0824835905 ; ISBN 13: 978-0824835903 .
Book Reviews
Georgios Halkias' Luminous Bliss represents an admirable and critical piece of scholarship, which has brought a long-awaited attention to the textual and ritual traditions of Pure Land Buddhism in Tibet. It is an essential read not only for those specializing in Pure Land Buddhism or Tibetan Buddhism, but also for those interested in the broader themes of MahÄyÄna and tantric traditions of South, Central, and Inner Asia. In his preliminary remarks in "Buddhisms and Other Conventions," Halkias articulates his hesitation in employing the term "Pure Land Buddhism" with reference to Tibet due to the term's common association with the East Asian MahÄyÄna development of a devotion to AmitÄbha and his SukhÄvati. Nevertheless, he settles on the term "Tibetan Pure Land Buddhism" as a generic term for reasons of comparison with Pure Land developments in South and East Asia and to differentiate AmitÄbha-centered trends from those associated with other deities. Halkias does not want the reader to assume that this term and his analysis of the given material suggest that there was a self-conscious and doctrinally independent movement of Pure Land Buddhism in Tibet. With the term "Pure Land Literature," he refers to the body of the relevant Tibetan texts, such as prayers for rebirth in SukhÄvati, commentaries on the Pure Land doctrine, and devotional texts to tantric deities, which express the ideas of faith and liberation in AmitÄbha's buddha-field. Although AmitÄbha's buddha-field receives primary attention in the book, Halkias, following Nattier's argument of 2003, demonstrates his awareness that the term "SukhÄvati" may stand for any of the countless buddha-fields in different world-systems. The book challenges us to think of Pure Land Buddhism as a broader category that permeates diverse strands of Buddhism in diverse geographical and cultural regions.
Outlining the history of Pure...