Robert Place's Buddha Tarot, New Edition from RedFeather
Channel: Not Fortune's Fool
Date: 2022-06-27

Bob's first edition of the Buddha tarot, with Llewellyn, landed in 2004 to great acclaim, but has been OOP for a very long time. As soon as he announced this commercial RedFeather edition about 3 years ago, I ran to pre-order.... because I'm a completist, right?

It's fascinating how after the first edition sold out, quickly becoming extremely expensive, interest in the deck continued to grow. Certainly this paralleled the rising interest in both tarot & Buddhism. 

So it's somewhat of a surprise to me that it took so long for Bob to arrange for a new edition. But it's finally been re-issued & has arrived here in Germany after the covid delay. Was it worth the wait?

Absolutely. RedFeather always makes good quality decks.

Bob's central insight is that the Buddha's story is also a Hero or Fool's Journey tale, while the 4 suits relate to the 4 yogas, & the Jungian functions. This makes the deck useful to the broader tarot community, giving it a wide perspective. It'll appeal to you even if you know little about Buddhism, or identify with another tradition.

The box is fantastic, beautifully made, with gorgeous textured overprinting. It does a great job reproducing Bob's original bright colors particularly common to the Tibetan tradition. My only caveat here is that the paper on the inside back corners don't quite align perfectly. A very minor thing.

Overall, the deck possesses a lovely Tibetan character. Think of it as little thangkas rendered in Bob's unique woodcut-y style. It may remind some of his more recent Japanese-themed Lenormand.

The well-bound, full-color book's amazing! Revised & expanded, it's now 288-pages of tarot history; a brief history of the Buddha & mandalas; tables of symbolism; nice clear descriptions of each card, explaining the characters; some suggested spreads; a full-deck mandala meditation; and a helpful glossary of Buddhist terms.

The modern card stock's moderately thin, but not flimsy. Each card is large, with a pleasant satin coating. Another small caveat here is that a couple of cards had a bit of paper fuzz on the edge. You'll want to gently shuffle these overhand.

The trumps show key figures & moments from the Buddha's journey. Note there's an extra trump representing Buddha's paranirva, his ascension, in keeping with Bob's long-time understanding that the tarot is a metaphor for soul ascent or rising consciousness.

The semi-illustrated suits display lotuses for wands/staves; vajras (dorjes) for swords; wisdom jewels for coins/pentacles ; & double vajras for cups. Bob makes these associations through the symbols' traditional Buddhist elemental correspondences. I don't think you'll have any issues telling the 2 vajra suits apart, so no worries.

The courts are dakinis for pages/valets; symbolic animals for knights/cavs; saktis for queens/reines; & different aspects of the Buddha for kings/res.

I've loved this deck for ages. It's enchanting to look at, charming to use, meditative & extremely insightful.

Very collectible too! Highly recommend.