pure-food laws: see food adulteration.

Pure Land Buddhism or Amidism, devotional sect of Mahayana Buddhism in China and Japan, centering on worship of the Buddha Amitabha. According to the Pure Land Sutras, composed in India in the 2d cent. A.D., Amitabha vowed to save all sentient beings by granting them rebirth in his realm, the "Western Paradise," a pure land endowed with miraculous characteristics ensuring its inhabitants easy entry into nirvana. Salvation could be attained by invoking the name of Amitabha with absolute faith in his grace and the efficacy of his vow. It was believed that Amitabha and his retinue would appear to the faithful at the time of death and convey them to his paradise. In both China and Japan the movement gained impetus from the idea of the "end of the Dharma," which divided the development of Buddhism into three ages: that of the true, the counterfeit, and the decaying dharma, that is, Buddhist teaching. Those living in the present final, degenerate age cannot attain enlightenment by the original means of self-effort, austerity, and superior knowledge and must rely entirely on faith. There were devotees of Amitabha in China as early as the end of the 3d cent. A.D.; the sect was officially founded in 402 by its first patriarch, Hui-Yuan. Later masters spread the faith among the masses, sometimes using evangelical methods, contrasting the torments of hell with the bliss of the "Western Paradise." In Japan, Pure Land Buddhism was established as a sect by Honen (1133-1212), who taught that even those who had mastered Buddhist philosophy "should behave themselves like simpleminded folk" and renounce all practices except the nembutsu, recitation of the formula Namu Amida Butsu [homage to Amitabha Buddha]. His disciple Shinran (1173-1262) carried Honen's teachings to their logical conclusion by abandoning monastic celibacy and marrying. Shinran held that reliance on one's own effort or on any practice other than the nembutsu would show lack of faith in Amitabha. He broke with Honen's followers on these issues and became the leader of the True Pure Land Sect, which grew to be the largest Buddhist sect in Japan. The numerous representations of Amitabha with his attendant bodhisattvas and the depictions of hell testify to the influence of Pure Land Buddhism on Chinese and Japanese Buddhist art. For translations of the Pure Land Sutras, see E. B. Crowell, Buddhist Mahayana Texts (1894, repr. 1969) and Alfred Bloom, Shinran's Gospel of Pure Grace (1965).

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), an international organization est. 1919 to advance the chemical sciences and contribute to the application of chemistry to the service of humanity. IUPAC is an association of national chemistry associations that is reponsible for the standardization of weights, measures, symbols, and terminology. It also publishes definitive atomic and chemical data and establishes standard methods for use in various laboratories.

Any of the 19 chemical elements that occur as minerals and are found in nature uncombined with other elements. They are commonly divided into three groups: metals (platinum, iridium, osmium, iron, zinc, tin, gold, silver, copper, mercury, lead, chromium); semimetals (bismuth, antimony, arsenic, tellurium, selenium); and nonmetals (sulfur, carbon). Members of the group of native elements form under widely varying physicochemical conditions and in very different rock types. Many deposits are sufficiently abundant to be commercially important.

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In microbiology, laboratory culture containing a single species of organism. A pure culture is usually derived from a mixed culture (containing many species) by methods that separate the individual cells so that, when they multiply, each will form an individually distinct colony, which may then be used to establish new cultures with the assurance that only one type of organism will be present. Pure cultures may be more easily isolated if the growth medium of the original mixed culture favours the growth of one organism to the exclusion of others.

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Devotional cult of the buddha Amitabha. It is one of the most popular forms of Mahayana Buddhism in East Asia today. Pure Land schools believe that rebirth in the Western Paradise (the Pure Land) is given to all those who invoke Amitabha's name with sincere devotion. In China the Pure Land cult can be traced back to the 4th century, when the scholar Huiyuan (333–416) formed a society of monks and laymen who meditated on the name of Amitabha. His successors systematized and spread the doctrine in the 6th–7th century. The Pure Land teaching was transmitted to Japan by monks of the Tiantai school.

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