MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
Amida's 'Fragrance'
Even though the devotee must still live out the unexhausted consequences of his past actions, including that congealed karma which is his physical body, henceforth his life is made fragrant by Amida's transferred grace. The metaphor of the 'perfuming' of Samsara by Nirvana is first met with in Ashvaghosha's influential treatise, the Daijokishinron, or The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, written as early as the fifth or sixth century, though probably not by the famous poet. It recurs in Shinran's Wasan, or Hymns in the Vernacula, where in number sixteen, a hymn to Seishi Bosatsu, we read: 'Just as the incense-perfumed man (zenkomin) has the smell of incense, this man is called One who is adorned with the fragrance of glory'.