What, if anything, is Esoteric Pure Land Buddhism? In 1224, the medieval Japanese scholar-monk Dohan (1179–1252) composed The Compendium on Esoteric Mindfulness of Buddha (Himitsu nenbutsu sho), which begins with another seemingly simple question: Why is it that practitioners of mantra and meditation rely on the recitation of the name of the Buddha Amitabha? To answer this question, Dohan explored diverse areas of study spanning the whole of the East Asian Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Although contemporary scholars often study Esoteric Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism as if they were mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed schools of Buddhism, in the present volume Aaron Proffitt examines Dohan’s Compendium in the context of the eastward flow of Mahayana Buddhism from India to Japan and uncovers Mahayana Buddhists employing multiple, overlapping, so-called 'esoteric' approaches along the path to awakening. Proffitt divides his study into two parts. In Part I he considers how early
