Namu

The nembutsu, as recited in Japanese-derived Pure Land Buddhism, is namu amida butsu (南無阿弥陀仏), a Japanese rendering of the Sanskrit Namo Amitābhāya Buddhāya.

(Before we go on: in continual chanting it’s usually just “namu amida bu”, which rolls off the tongue easier!)

The first word, namu/namo, is of ancient heritage. Wiktionary very helpfully gives us the example of the ṛgveda passage 1.27.13, composed anywhere from 1500 BCE to 1000 BCE:

námo mahádbhyo námo arbhakébhyo námo yúvabhyo náma āśinébhyaḥ
yájāma devā́nyádi śaknávāma mā́ jyā́yasaḥ śáṃsamā́ vṛkṣi devāḥ

Homage to the mighty and homage to the lesser [gods]; homage to the younger and homage to the elder [gods]!

“Ancientness” is not a sign of good, but it adds flavour to the practice that is worth reflecting on. Nembutsu-focused Pure Land Buddhism began to differentiate itself in the 7th century CE, with the efforts of Shàndǎo in China taken as a key player,¹ and a burst of activity in 12th/13th century Japan led to popular Pure Land Japanese Buddhism, which provided the impulse for my own practice.

The centring of the nembutsu in practice is a particular chain of interdependence: Sanskrit words are joined together, some from centuries before and some from centuries after the historical Buddha’s life, parsed into a Japanese phonology, then delivered around the world through preaching, books, and the internet.

Namu has literal translations stemming from namo’s connotations of bowing and reverence, but one of its main powers in contemporary Buddhism (regardless of who comes after the namu/namo) is in reaching towards a way of engaging with the universe that goes back thousands of years: through a verbal bow, using language to indicate and describe your ongoing act of giving reverence to something which is both other-than, and part-of, yourself.

Peace,
⭕️

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1. But history is messy.↩︎

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