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1 Mukaekō Practice for the Deathbed Sarah Johanna Horton Belief that at death one could be born in the Pure Land of the buddha Amida (Skt. Amitābha, Amitāyus) became common in eleventh-century Japan and has remained so to the present day. This is a source of great comfort both to the dying and to those surrounding them. The popularity of the notion of Pure Land birth came about at least in part because of an increased focus on the welcoming or raigō scene, in which Amida and his attendants, including the bodhisattvas Kannon (Avalokiteśvara) and Seishi (Mahāstāmaprāpta), joyfully come to greet the dying person and escort her or him to the Pure Land. An important but almost completely overlooked reason for this focus was the spread of a ritual called mukaekō (welcoming ceremony). Mukaekō are dramatic enactments of raigō. In Japan, they began as a practice of the Nijūgo zanmai-e or Twenty-Five Samādhi Society, a fellowship of monks with Pure Land interests that formed in the Yokawa sector of the great Tendai center on Mt. Hiei in 986. Genshin (942–1017), famous today as the author of Ōjō yōshū (Essentials of Pure Land birth), soon became the leader. The group’s activities consisted of a monthly meeting during which members chanted the nenbutsu—the name of Amida—and took numerous vows, including one promising to be present at the deathbed of any member who became fatally ill and to assist him in his final contemplations.1 At some point during the next thirty years, however, the Nijūgo zanmai-e also began to sponsor mukaekō. No one is actually on the deathbed when mukaekō take place. These rituals are, rather, enjoyable rehearsals for the deathbed. Mukaeko ̄ are still conducted yearly in at least fourteen temples throughout Japan; the most famous is at Taimadera in Nara prefecture. This chapter , however, focuses on the early development of mukaekō in Japan and its basis in the idea of raigō. 27 The Background of the Term Raigō Raigō, often translated in English as ‘‘welcoming descent,’’ is used in a Pure Land Buddhist context to refer to a buddha coming to welcome the dying person and escort her to a pure land. This theme is found only in sūtras that are thought to be apocryphal; therefore, there is no Sanskrit or Pāli word for raigō.2 The same concept is indicated by the terms gōshō and injō.3 These three words are more or less interchangeable ; in this chapter, I will use the term raigō, except when citing a text that uses an alternate term. Many sūtras describe a buddha manifesting himself during everyday moments. Some even speak of a buddha appearing at the moment of death. Neither of these situations, however, actually constitutes a raigō scene, which must involve a buddha not only appearing at death but also escorting the dying person to a pure land. The raigō concept is therefore tied to Pure Land thought. Nevertheless, some of the earliest sūtras to mention pure lands contain no reference to it. For example, one of the first pure lands to be discussed in sūtras is that of a buddha named Aks ˙ obhya. The Aks ˙ obhya-tathāgatasya-vyūha (Ch. Achu foguo jing, Jpn. Ashuku bukkokukyō), compiled around the first century, tells how, while still a monk, Aks ˙ obhya vows to create a pure land in the east, but the sūtra does not mention the concept of raigō.4 The most popular pure land by far, and the one usually referred to by the term raigō, is that of the Buddha Amida, called the Land of Bliss (Skt. Sukhāvatı̄) or Utmost Bliss ( Jpn. Gokuraku). Nevertheless, even most sūtras that discuss Amida’s Pure Land do not speak of him coming to escort the dying to his realm. The locus classicus for the concept of Amida’s raigō is usually said to be the nineteenth vow of Amida in the Sukhāvatı¯vyūha-sūtra (Ch. Wuliangshou jing, Jpn. Muryōjukyō):5 May I not gain possession of perfect awakening if, once I have attained buddhahood, any among the throng of living beings in the ten regions of the universe resolves to seek awakening, cultivates all the virtues, and single-mindedly aspires to be born in my land, and if, when they approached the moment of their death, I did not appear...

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