Amitayus Stickers

Ancient 11th-century Tibetan image of Buddha Amitayus attended by Bodhisattvas. The cult of Amitayus, the Buddha of Eternal Life, was popular in Tibet, where his followers believed that devotion to this Buddha would prolong life. In this 11th-century painting, Amitayus is shown holding a jar containing the elixir of immortality, amrita, in his lap. He is richly bejeweled and has a golden complexion, creating radiance appropriate to his transcendent nature. He mediates in a heavenly assembly of bodhisattvas, flanked by two standing bodhisattvas typical of medieval eastern Indian art and an array of seated bodhisattvas who receive his doctrine. The seven figures in the uppermost register are monastic-robed hierarchs.

The God of Life

In the center of this 18th-century composition sits Buddha Amitayus, the Buddha of Infinite Life, on a Chinese-style seat. In front of him, lotus blossom and its branches carry a king and his auspicious “Seven Jewels.” Amitayus presides over a paradisal realm with a two-storied palace behind him, the roof tiles of which carry the six-syllable mantra of Avalokiteshvara. The palaces in the corners of the painting represent realms similar to the central one and are situated at the cardinal directions around it, each of them occupied by an eight-deity assembly of the mandala of Amitayus.

Amitayus, the Buddha of Eternal Life, is also known as Amitabha, one of the five Cosmic Buddhas of Esoteric Buddhism. He is shown in his paradise, Sukhavati, the Western Pure Land, enthroned beneath a flowering tree festooned with strands of jewels and auspicious symbols. To either side, the sky is filled with throngs of ecstatic demigods who bear offerings and scatter flowers. Seated below are the eight great bodhisattvas, and between them are two large, low tables covered with offerings. To either side are the vast assembled audiences who receive Amitayus’s message. At the bottom, set within a vast panoramic landscape, are courtyards, giant lotus flowers, and pools from which the purified are being reborn.

White Tara is the goddess of health and longevity. She is related to a group of twenty-one Taras where each of them possessing their own virtues and wisdoms. She is also appeared in the great triad of long-life trinity along with Amitayus and Ushnishavijaya. Legend has it White Tara was born from a tear of compassion that fell from the left eye of Avalokitesvara. Therefore her compassion to sentient beings is compared to the love that of a mother to her child. White Tara is white in color. She is richly adorned with silks and jewels with her dark hair swept over to her right shoulder. She sits in a full vajra posture. Her left hand holds a stem of Upala flowers with three blooms that represent the past, future and present, while he...