http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitabha
Amitābha (Sanskrit: अमिताभ,
Amitābhaḥ; Chinese: 阿彌陀佛,
Āmítuó Fó; Tibetan: འོད་དཔག་མེད་,
Ö-pa-me) is a celestial buddha described in the
scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism.
Amitabha is the principal buddha in the Pure Land sect, a
branch of Buddhism practiced mainly in East Asia. According to
these scriptures, Amitābha possesses infinite merits resulting from
good deeds over countless past lives as a bodhisattva named
Dharmakara.
According to the
Larger Sūtra of Immeasurable Life Amitābha was, in very
ancient times and possibly in another realm, a monk named
Dharmakāra. In some versions of the sūtra, Dharmakāra is
described as a former king who, having come into contact with the
Buddhist teachings
through the buddha Lokesvararaja,
renounced his throne. He then resolved to become a buddha and so to come
into possession of a buddhakṣetra
("buddha-field", a world produced by a buddha's merit) possessed of
many perfections. These resolutions were expressed in his
forty-eight vows, which set out the type of buddha-field
Dharmakāra aspired to create, the conditions under which beings
might be born into that world, and what kind of beings they would
be when reborn there.
In the versions of the sutra widely known in China, Vietnam,
Korea and Japan, Dharmakāra's eighteenth vow was that any being in
any universe desiring to be born into Amitābha's Pure Land and
calling upon his name even as few as ten times will be guaranteed
rebirth there. His nineteenth vow promises that he, together with
his bodhisattvas and other blessed Buddhists, will appear before
those who call upon him at the moment of death. This openness and
acceptance of all kinds of people has made the Pure Land belief one of
the major influences in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Pure Land Buddhism seems
to have first become popular in northwest India/Pakistan and Afghanistan, from where
it spread to Central Asia and
China, and from China
to Vietnam, Korea and Japan.
The sutra goes on to explain that Amitābha, after accumulating
great merit over countless lives, finally achieved buddhahood and
is still alive in his land of Sukhāvatī, whose many
virtues and joys are described