Taima-dera in the context of "Sukhavati"

Ippen Shōnin (一遍上人) 1234/9–1289 was a Japanese Buddhist itinerant preacher (hijiri) whose movement, the Ji-shū (時宗; "Time sect") became one of the major currents of medieval Japanese Pure Land Buddhism. Born in modern Ehime Prefecture, he studied in the Seizan branch of Jōdo-shū before meeting with many Shingon and Tendai associated hijiri and then becoming a wandering holy man himself. During a pilgrimage to the Kumano Shrines, Ippen had an experience which inspired him to spread the Pure Land faith throughout Japan. Accompanied by bands of followers, he traveled throughout Japan teaching that salvation lay in the single-minded invocation of Amida’s Name and that the very moment of recitation unites the reciter with the timeless enlightenment of the Buddha. Ippen traveled over fifteen hundred miles, visiting every major population center and devotional center in Japan, such as Kumano, Zenkōji, Taimadera, and Mt. Kōya.

In his itinerant ministry, Ippen combined the devotional recitation of the nembutsu with ecstatic dancing, and the distribution of ofuda (talismans) inscribed with Amida’s Name, which he handed to people as symbols of faith and rebirth in the Pure Land. His teachings blended the Pure Land ideal of Other-Power with Zen non-dualism and the folk religious practices of wandering ascetics. Rejecting all self-powered efforts and sectarian distinctions, Ippen held that the simple recitation of even a single nembutsu invariably linked one with Amida Buddha's enlightenment, assuring our birth in the Pure Land. Ippen’s radical vision of faith and his insistence that the heart can attain birth in the Pure Land while the body remains in this world gave rise to a popular movement that appealed to all social classes. His life is outlined in the Ippen Hijiri-e, a series of narrative painted scrolls which are the main historical source for his life and activities.

The Taima Mandala (當麻曼荼羅,綴織当麻曼荼羅図) is an 8th century mandala in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism. It depicts Sukhavati, the western Pure Land, with the Buddha Amitābha (Japanese: Amida) in the center. The original copy was made around 763 AD, and is currently kept at Taima-dera temple in Nara. Many copies have been made since, and the original work has degraded considerably.

According to popular legend, Chūjō-hime witnessed the creation of the mandala, crafted from fibers of lotus stems by two nuns who were thought to be Amida and Kannon in disguise. The imagery on the painting is largely based on the Sutra of the Contemplation of Amitayus, and has been the subject of several doctrinal commentaries in Japanese Buddhism.