The term Ōjō (往生) is a term in Japanese Buddhism for rebirth in the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha. Sometimes the term is expressed as Ōjō gokuraku (往生極楽, rebirth in the land of ultimate happiness). The subject of how to obtain birth in the Pure Land remained an important question throughout Japanese Buddhist history even until today.

The Nara Schools

The early Nara Buddhism schools provided different opinions as to how to obtain rebirth in the Pure Land, though in some cases, such as the Hossō school taught that icchantikas (people who committed the Five Grave Acts) could not obtain rebirth ever. Other schools taught that while accessible to all, the rituals involved were difficult, or that rebirth was not desirable.

Tendai and Shingon

Early sects, particularly the Tendai and Shingon sects relied on esoteric texts, or interpretations of the Contemplation Sutra to develop rituals and visualizations of rebirth in the Pure Land. Genshin, a Tendai monk, wrote the Ōjōyōshū in which he described the horrors of Hell in Buddhism, and the delights of the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha, then teaches the importance of reciting the nembutsu while maintaining a regimen of visualization and meditation practices.

The voiced palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨j⟩. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j, and in the Americanist phonetic notation it is ⟨y⟩. Because the English name of the letter J, jay, does not start with [j] but with [d͡ʒ] (voiced palato-alveolar affricate), this approximant is sometimes called yod instead, as in the phonological history terms yod-dropping and yod-coalescence.

The palatal approximant is the semivocalic equivalent of the close front unrounded vowel [i]. The two are almost identical featurally. They alternate with each other in certain languages, such as French, and in the diphthongs of some languages, ⟨j⟩ and ⟨i̯⟩ with the non-syllabic diacritic are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound.

In the writing systems used for most of the languages of Central, Northern and Eastern Europe, the letter j denotes the palatal approximant, as in German Jahr 'year'. This is the IPA usage, and although it may be counter-intuitive for English speakers, it does occur with this sound in a few words familiar to such speakers as in the Hebrew word "hallelujah" and the German "Jägermeister".

The dollar has been the currency of Jamaica since 1969. It is often abbreviated "J$", the J serving to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies. It is divided into 100 cents.

Exchange rate

History

The history of currency in Jamaica should not be considered in isolation of the wider picture in the British West Indies as a whole. See British West Indies dollar. The peculiar feature about Jamaica was the fact that it was the only British West Indies territory to use special issues of the sterling coinage, apart from the four-pence groat coin which was specially issued for all the British West Indies, and later only for British Guiana.

The earliest money in Jamaica was Spanish copper coins called maravedíes. This relates to the fact that for nearly four hundred years Spanish dollars, known as pieces of eight were in widespread use on the world's trading routes, including the Caribbean Sea region. However, following the revolutionary wars in Latin America, the source of these silver trade coins dried up. The last Spanish dollar was minted at the Potosí mint in 1825. The United Kingdom had adopted a very successful gold standard in 1821, so 1825 was an opportune time to introduce the British sterling coinage into all the British colonies.