HoroscopoDiario
- Deck name: The Buddha Tarot
- Author and artist: Robert. M. Place
- Publisher: REDFeather, Mind, Body, Spirit
- Recommended retail price: $39.99 US
- ISBN: 978-0-7643-6253-8
- Reviewer: Helen Masters
Robert M. Place is an American artist, author and creator of tarot, Lenormand and oracle decks, with a keen interest in the history of Tarot cards. He’s the creator of ‘The Alchemical Tarot’ and ‘The Angels Tarot’ amongst many other decks, and author of ‘The Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination’. He has lectured and taught around the world on mysticism and the history and use of tarot.
This is the second edition of the Buddha Tarot deck, which was first published in 2002. It’s a 79 card deck, rather than the traditional 78, as an extra trump card is included. The overall presentation has changed in this edition. The original release included a light weight card stock box, and a standard little white book. This edition has a lovely sturdy magnetic closure box, and includes a substantial book. The cards are larger with black borders containing the card name.
I love the overall presentation of the deck. The box is beautifully designed and the card images are drawn in a very colourful almost illustrative style. The author explains that he drew the images to look like hand-painted woodcuts, with reinterpreted icons from India, Asia, China and Tibet. There aren’t any cards here that look ominous (such as the Death or The Devil cards), so this might be a good deck for readings where you want more positive or neutral images.
The card names have been put on the left side, within the border, compared to the usual placement at the bottom. I love this design choice as it seems less distracting, and I hope more deck creators do the same.
My only criticism of the presentation is the card quality and size. The card stock is thin and has started to show wear on the edges after only a few uses, which is really noticeable with the black border. The cards are large at 14cm x 9cm. Personally, I don’t understand why the size has been increased so much. They’re also slippery even though they’re not glossy. So as an overhand shuffler I found them difficult to handle. Better card quality and size, rather than a better quality container would be more practical.
The idea behind the Buddha tarot is that the life of Siddharta Gautama, the Buddha, can be mapped on to the linear progression of the Tarot trumps. Robert M Place goes into great depths in the accompanying book discussing his rationale for this with the aim of giving the reader a deeper understanding of the cards. I’m really impressed at the depth of information he includes. He traces the concept of a three part journey of the soul, and the archetypal pattern of the road to enlightenment, as threads leading to the fifteenth century roots of tarot as we know it today. He guides the reader through the history and philosophy of, and connections between, Plato, Pythagoras, Hermeticism, Sufism, Buddhism, Christianity, and the Renaissance, which amounts to a good third of the book. To get the most out of the symbology of the cards I highly recommend reading this portion of the book before diving into a reading.
The author recounts the life of the Buddha as illustrating the archetypal pattern of both his life and the tarot. It’s presented as reflecting the three part journey of the soul (or the hero’s journey) which starts with being attached to the material, then experiencing suffering, and finally attaining enlightenment. This correlates to the tarot trumps divided into three sections: Trumps numbered 1-7, 8-13, and 14-21 (The Fool is unnumbered in this deck). Each of the trump cards parallels a stage in the Buddha’s journey to enlightenment. An additional trump card is included which represents the final attainment of Nirvana at the Buddha’s death.
The minor cards are heavily influenced by the concept of a mandala, a symbolic mystical diagram of the cosmos. The author calls Tarot itself a mandala. The traditional suits of Swords, Coins, Wands, and Cups are given correspondence to ‘Jinas’, archetypal Buddhist qualities linked to the four cardinal directions. The cards depict the suit symbols as pips together with an additional illustration below that relating to the meaning. Buddhist techniques and principles are included into the symbology such as mudras, Buddhist good luck symbols, and Yoga. So there are a multiple layers of meanings based on the connection to Buddhist philosophy and practise.
The interpretations in the book for the trump cards include a quote which reflects the meaning of the image, a description of the card scene (which includes part of Buddha’s life story), a commentary, and a section on the divinatory meaning of the card. The minor cards have less information, just a short paragraph. No keywords are given for either, which I think would have been helpful to include as a quick aid.
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The cards have a really positive feel about them. This was confirmed for me when I asked the cards what kind of readings this deck is best used for. I drew the Nine of Double Varjas (corresponding to the Nine of Cups). It indicates readings for hope, optimism, confidence, trust and faith.
I don’t think the Buddha tarot is that suitable for complete beginners to tarot who might be looking for a deck based closely on the Rider Waite Smith system. You can see the system reflected in the Buddha tarot, but with it’s heavy focus on Buddhist principles, philosophy and card naming, it would probably be better (and do the deck more justice I think) to approach it as a stand alone system, especially if you have no prior knowledge about Buddhism.
If you do know a lot about Buddhism already, such as aspects already mentioned like the Jinas and mudras, then this deck will be easy to pick up and use straight away.
Reviewed by: Helen Masters
