[Origin] Of the three mandalas unde

[Origin] Of the three mandalas under discussion, the Taima Mandala is the oldest and best-known. According to tradition, Chujo no Tsubone, the daughter of a nobleman Yokohagino Dainagon, lost her mother, and so aspired to the Pure Land where she should have been born. In 763 she became a nun at the Taima-dera, Nara Prefecture, and received the Dharma name Honyo ("Dharma-suchness"). Wishing to envision Amida, she began a seven-day meditation on him. On the sixth day a nun appeared and instructed Honyo to gather a hundred horseloads of lotus-stems. When this was done in three days with the help of her father, the nun appeared again and span the lotus fibers into thread. When she had dyed the threads in the five Buddhist colors, another nun appeared and wove them into a Pure Land mandala overnight. Honyo was greatly rejoiced to see this, and asked their names. The first nun said that she was an incarnation of Amida and the second nun, Kannon (Avalokiteshvara). Since then, Honyo diligently contemplated this mandala, and successfully attained birth in the Pure Land in 775.