Amida (or AMITABHA) Buddha

Originally regarded as impersonal, as the ideal of boundle light. The dogma of Amida is supposed to have been originated by Persian or Gnostic ideas influencing the Buddhism of Cashmere and Nepaul, for it must have been from one of these countries that it reached China ( via Thibet). According to the doctrines of the Mahatzâna school, Amida is regarded as the celestial reflex of Sakyamuni. "The doctrine of Amida and his paradise in the western heavens is, strictly speaking, no contradiction to the doctrine of Nirvana, for it does not interrupt the circle of transmigration, though it offers to the devotee of Amida æons of rest. But the popular mind understands his paradise to lie beyond the circle of Metempsychosis, and the common people look upon this Pure Land of the West exactly in the same light as the Christian looks upon his promised rest in Heaven." Amiens Cathedral. 60,000 vols. Peter the Hermit was born here 1050. Pop., 1891 83,654.