BHAISAJYA-GURU

(Sanskrit), Tibetan Sman-bla-rgyal-po, Chinese Yao-shih-fo, Japanese Yakushi Nyorai the healing Buddha, widely worshiped in Tibet, China, and Japan. According to popular belief in those countries, some illnesses are effectively cured by merely touching his image or calling out his name. More serious illnesses, however, require the performance of complex ritual acts, as described in the principal scripture of the Bhaisajya-guru cult. Bhaisajya-guru is associated with the self-born, eternal Buddha, Aksobhya (and by some Japanese sects with another eternal Buddha, Vairocana), and rules over the Eastern Paradise. In Japan the worship of Bhaisajya-guru reached a peak during the Heian Period (7941185), and he is especially venerated by the Tendai, Shingon, and Zen sects. In Japan he is often represented in the garb of a blue-skinned Buddha with his medicine bowl in one hand. In Tibet he often holds the medicinal myrobalan fruit. He has in his retinue 12 divine yaksa, or nature spirit, generals who protect true believers. Chinese Buddhists, in a later phase, connected these generals with the 12 hours of the day and the 12 years of the Chinese calendar's cycle. The Bhaisajyaguru Sutra had four Chinese translations, the earliest from the Eastern Chin (AD 317420), and two Tibetan versions.