PURE AND IMPURE LANDS. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a "Pure Land" is a purified land where buddhas and bodhisattvas, the future buddhas, dwell. In contrast, the realms inhabited by ordinary sentient beings are called "Impure Lands," for they are tainted by blind passion.

In Chinese Buddhism, two technical terms, jingtu and huitu, are used to refer to Pure and Impure Lands, respectively. The concept behind these terms, however, is attested to in Indian Buddhist texts by such terms as buddhakṣetra-pariśuddhi ("the purification of the buddha land") or pariśuddhaṃ buddhakṣetram ("purified buddha land"), as in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (edited by Rajendralala Mitra, Calcutta, 1888, pp. 362–363), and apariśuddhaṃ buddhakṣetram ("unpurified buddha land") or kliṣṭaṃ buddhakṣetram ("tainted buddha land"), as in the Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka Sūtra (edited by...