The History of Buddhist Thought c23.29

c23.29

The longer *Sukhāvatī-vyūha* is in form much like the *Lotus*. It is chiefly the qualities of Tathāgatas that are eulogized. Buddha gives a list of eighty-one Buddhas, the last of whom was Lokeśvararāja. This Buddha described to his disciple Dharmākara the perfections of innumerable Buddha fields. The disciple took all these Buddha fields and conceived a field eighty-one times more excellent than all those which had been described. He vowed to become its Buddha, and now he dwells in it, the Happy Land Sukhāvatī, as Amitābha, the Buddha of immeasurable light and of immeasurable life (Amitāyus). The two chief bodhisattvas there are Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta. This is the only mention in the sūtra of Avalokiteśvara’s importance. In the shorter *Sukhāvatīvyūha* he is not mentioned at all.