In the Heian Period, people believe that after death they would be reborn in the Pure Land Paradise of Amida Buddha. As this belief spread, the desire to see expressions of the Pure Land in Buddhist sculpture grew as well. These images are called Raigo. The idea was Amida Buddha coming down from the far-off Pure Land Paradise to meet the dead souls and take them to heaven with him. These images usually had Amida in the center with an attendant on either side. The end of the Heian Period, society was changes so a whole, artistic expression became more realistic, both in painting and sculpture. One of the earliest experiments in realism in a Raigo triad was the Joshoko-ji Temple. In the painting, the central triad and their surrounding Bodhisattva
