Greater--the Amitabha or Amida Buddha--that One who in boundless
light abideth, life of the Universe, without colour, without form,
the Lover of man, his Protector and Refuge. He may, He must be
worshipped, for in Him are all the essential attributes of Deity,
and He, the Saviour of mankind, has prepared a pure land of peace
for his servants, beyond the storms of life and death. This belief
eventually crystallised and became a dogma in the faith of the Pure
Land, known in Japan as Jodo Shinshu, a faith held by the majority
of the Japanese people. It is a Belief which has spread also in
Eastern Siberia, many parts of China, Hawaii, and, in fact,
whereever the Japanese race has spread. And the man who stated this
belief for all time was Shinran Shonin, author of the Psalms here
presented.

He was born in the year A.D. 1175 near City-Royal--Kyoto, the
ancient capital of Japan. He was a son of one of the noblest
families, in close connection with the Imperial House, and had it
not been for the passion for truth and the life of the spirit which
consumed him, his history would have been that of the many other
brilliant young men who sank into mere courtiers--"Dwellers above
the Clouds," as the royalties and courtiers of the day were called
among the people. But the clear air above the clouds in which his
spirit spread its wings was not that of City-Royal, and the Way
opened before him as it has opened before many a saint of the
Christian Church, for while still a child he lost both his parents,
and so, meditating on the impermanence of mortal life, and seeing
how the fashion of this world passes away, he abandoned his title
and became a monk in one of the noble monasteries whose successors
still stand glorious among the pine woods above Lake Biwa.