By Robert M. Place
Published by REDFeather Mind, Body, Spirit
First published in the US on 24 July 2022
RRP: $39.99
ISBN: 978-0-7643-6253-8
Robert Place is an American artist, author and scholar that has created some well known decks like The Alchemical Tarot and The Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery, as well as books such as The Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination and The Tarot, Magic, Alchemy, Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism. His decks, books and lectures are recognised and esteemed all over the world as some of the best in the subject of Tarot and Divination.
The Buddha Tarot draws the similarity between the story of the life of Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha, and the trumps of the Tarot, changing the usual major arcana cards into Buddhist equivalents but maintaining most of their meaning. The minor arcana suits of Swords, Pentacles, Wands and Cups are replaced by Vajras, Jewels, Lotuses and Double Vajras, representing thinking, sensation, feeling and intuition, respectively. The deck also replaces the court cards of Page, Knight, Queen and King with the Buddhist equivalents of Dakini, Guardian Animal, Sakti and Buddha.
Robert Place illustrates each card in a highly symbolical way. The cards are beautifully illustrated, but the illustrations are simple, making the symbolism pop out.
The deck follows a similar structure to the Tarot de Marseille, with Justice as the 8th trump card and Strength as the 11th, and with the suit symbols showing the minor arcana number. However, the numbered cards also have illustrations that help identify their symbolism. Similar to the Alchemical Tarot, I would say this deck has its own system and should be studied separately from any existing ones.
Being based on Buddhist tradition, the deck does not represent different ethnicities or backgrounds, focusing only on the Buddha and Buddhist teachings.
The cards are made with relatively thick card stock, but since they are particularly large, they still bend easily. The thickness of the cards allows them to be shuffled and handled easily, but their size makes them hard to hold. The card edges are also not gilded, and I can see them fading with use.
The deck comes in a sturdy magnetic closing box, with the 288 page guidebook fitting nicely over a double compartment for the cards. The box is particularly large, even for Tarot kit standards, but is of solid build and nicely finished. My only improvement would be having some sort of ribbon set below the cards to make removing them from the box easier.
Reviewed by: Mayra M.F. Swann
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