Perhaps the greatest contribution made by China to Buddhist mythology is the goddess of mercy, Kuanyin. She seems to have evolved out of the Indian bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) Avalokitesvara, toward the close of the Tang dynasty. The addition of female companions for bodhisattvas may have started the process by which Kuanyin became a distinct deity. In Tibet, the spouse of Avalokitesvara was Tara, who was sometimes known as Pandaravasini (clad in white). Since Pai-i Kuanyin is a literal translation of Tara's title into the Chinese language, there is reason to believe that the attributes of Tara combined with Avalokitesvara's all-compassionate character to produce a powerful new mother goddess. As the bestower of children, Kuanyin appealed to a people steeped in ancestor worship.

The Chinese Buddhist goddess of mercy Kuanyin, is unwilling to enter Nirvana because of her awareness of worldly suffering.

            AVALOKITESVARA (B--Skt; lit., "looking-on lord" [avalokita, "looking on," and isvara, "lord"]). A Bodhisattva whose infinite compassion for suffering beings causes him to be always available to teach and to rescue them from danger. Loved throughout the Mahayana Buddhist world, Avalokitesvara more than any other bodhisattva exemplifies the infinite compassion of the enlightened mind and is widely thought of as a feminine being (see § 5). He/she realizes the ideal of all Mahayana Buddhists who vow to postpone freedom from suffering and delusion (i.e., Buddhahood) until they can save all other beings from suffering as well.

1. The name Avalokitesvara In Sanskrit, Avalokitesvara might mean "the lord who looks in every direction," or "the lord of what is seen" (that is, the created world). One scholar suggests that Avalokitesvara originated as the personification of the wise and compassionate glance (avalokana) which the future Sakyamuni Buddha cast from the Tusita Heaven upon the suffering world before entering it. Others suggest that the name means "observer of sounds, or voices," and point to Avalokitesvara's compassionate response to any being in danger who calls upon him. Still others suggest that the term originally meant "the shining lord," the one who illumines the world. Whatever the original meaning, translations into Central and East Asian languages show that Buddhists have understood the name to refer to Avalokitesvara's compassionate gaze. In Tibet, Avalokitesvara is known as sPyan-ras gzigs ("with a pitying look"), and in Mongolia as Nidu-ber ujeci ("he who looks with the eyes"). In China he/she is known as Kuan-yin ("regarder of sounds," i.e., the voices of the suffering), as Kuan-shih-yin ("regarder of sounds of the world"), or as Kuan-tzu-tsai ("one who truly sees, and, transcending, is free in the existent"). In Japanese the Chinese names are pronounced as Kannon and as Kanseon. Likewise in Korea he/she is known as Kwanum and Kwanseium. Among Avalokitesvara's other names are Padmapani ("lotus-bearer") and Lokesvara ("Lord of the world"), the name invariably used for him in Indochina and Thailand. In Sri Lanka he is known as Natha-deva.
2. Avalokitesvara in Indian Buddhism. Sutras, paintings, and statues show that Avalokitesvara was widely revered in India from the third to the seventh century AD His virtues and powers are recounted in more than eighty sutras. Among the earliest and most influential are the Saddharmapundarikasutra (the Lotus Sutra) and the long and short Sukhavativyuha Sutra (Sutra of the Land of Bliss, or Pure Land). In the former he appears in many guises to teach those who are destined to learn from a certain kind of being, and he rescues those who call upon or think upon him in any kind of danger. In the latter he appears as one of the two chief assistants (with Mahasthamaprapta) of the Buddha Amitabha in the latter's Buddha-world, the Pure Land. These early sutras show that he has great compassion for all beings, preaches the Dharma, destroys false views and passions, frees beings from suffering, and brings them to the joy of unconditional safety. Another sutra portrays his journeys into the worlds of the dead to save those who are there. In later texts he is shown as "emperor of the magician kings," having supreme power in that he possesses the all-powerful six-syllable formula (MANTRA), OM MANIPADME HOM. In still other texts we find Avalokitesvara as both the creator of this world and the macrocosm itself.
3. Tibet and Central Asia. In the seventh century Avalokitesvara was introduced into Tibet, where he quickly became the most popular Buddhist figure. There he is understood, following an Indian tradition, as the manifestation in bodhisattva form of the active compassion of the eternal Dhyani Buddha Amitabha, whose figure is depicted in the headdress. Avalokitesvara protects this world in the interval between the departure of the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni, and the coming of the next Buddha to appear in this world, Maitreya. He is the creator of our world, and the protector of Tibet in particular. Tara is his consort, and he is reincarnated in each Dalai Lama, the temporal ruler of the theocratic kingdom.
4. East Asia. A number of the Indian sutras in which Avalokitesvara figures prominently were popular in China and Japan from very early times. In the Prajnaparamita Hrdaya ("Heart") Sutra (Hsin Ching), a very popular text in China and Japan, Avalokitesvara, the speaker, enters into deep Samadhi and describes the highest wisdom about the relation of the phenomenal and ultimate realms. In the Surangama Sutra, Avalokitesvara, as paradigm of one on the path to Buddhahood, describes the process by which he entered into samadhi. The twenty-fifth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, perhaps originally an independent text, has enjoyed wide circulation as the Avalokitesvara Sutra (Kuan-yin Ching). The sutra teaches that if one thinks of Avalokitesvara, fire ceases to burn, swords fall to pieces, enemies become kindhearted, bonds are loosened, spells revert to whence they came, beasts flee, and snakes lose their poison. Chinese and Japanese commentators have seen the meaning of this text on two levels. On one level, the infinite compassion of Kuan-yin is able to save beings from suffering and dangers by awakening them to their own enlightened mind. On another, more popular, level, the text's description of Avalokitesvara's miraculous intervention on behalf of those who call upon him stands as myth, conveying belief in the bodhisattva's miraculous power to rescue and teach.






In China, Korea, and Japan, as in Tibet, the powerful assistance of Avalokitesvara can be invoked by single-mindedly reciting certain mantras. The most popular is (in its Chinese version) ha-mu chiu-k'u chiu-nan ta-tzu ta-pei Kuan-shih-yin p'u-sa, "homage to the one who saves from sufferings and disasters, the greatly compassionate greatly pitying bodhisattva Avalokitesvara."

The Pure Land schools in China and Japan emphasize Avalokitesvara's role as assistant to Amitabha in welcoming beings to the Pure Land and in ruling and teaching there. In Pure Land temples an image of Avalokitesvara is often enshrined to the left of Amitabha, and in paintings Kuan-yin is frequently shown welcoming souls at death into the Pure Land.

5. Avalokitesvara as feminine. In China, Korea, and Japan Kuan-yin has been thought of as a feminine bodhisattva. This concept, which suggests that the compassion of the enlightened bodhisattva is like that of mother, sister, friend, and queen, can be traced to the fifth century in China, but it was not until the twelfth century that feminine representations came to predominate. Some hold that the change has roots in Indian Buddhist sutras. One view widely held in the Buddhist world is that an advanced bodhisattva has transcended distinctions of gender, so that the combination in the original icons of Avalokitesvara of flowing drapery, soft body contours, and a visible moustache is meant to suggest transcendence of sexual identity, not masculinity. Further, early sutras state that Avalokitesvara can take feminine form to teach, and the Lotus Sutra and other scriptures establish Avalokitesvara as the fulfiller of all wishes and the giver of children. Others hold that from at least the twelfth century Chinese worshipers of Kuan-yin have seen in the bodhisattva qualities associated with aspects of other feminine divine figures, such as Hsi Wang Mu, or the legendary self-sacrificing princess Miao-shan, or Tara, the white-robed consort of Avalokitesvara in Tibet. Others point out that a particular manifestation known as Cundi-Avalokitesvara, "mother of seven kotis (ca. ten millions) of Buddhas," was known in China from the seventh century, and may have influenced the concept of Kuan-yin as feminine. None of these theories completely explains the development of this unique feminine bodhisattva, nor takes away from the fact that the Buddha's compassion and powerful aid are appropriately symbolized in feminine form. Kuan-yin's feminine representations are in perfect accord with the intimate feeling of trust and love that Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans have for the radiant, gracious, serene, and powerful bodhisattva of compassion.
6. Iconographic representations. The earliest Indian pictorial representations of Avalokitesvara (fifth to eighth centuries) at Ajanta and Aurangebad show him saving beings from distress, as do contemporary early paintings at Tun-huang in China. In Indian and Tibetan writings there are two kinds of descriptions of Avalokitesvara's manifest physical forms. The first are fantastic, unimaginable; meditation on these will bring about trance and union with the bodhisattva by confounding the imagination and rational processes. The second are precise descriptions intended as instructions for those who construct his image either in the mind or in sculpture and MANDALA painting. Here the purpose is to enable the meditator to unite with the bodhisattva by first successfully imagining his form with its symbolic meanings. Forms taken by Avalokitesvara appropriate for meditation are quite various: one Nepalese text describes 108 distinct manifestations, while groups of 31 or 32 are common. In India, Tibet, and Nepal he is frequently depicted as Avalokitesvara-Padmapani (lotus-bearer), wearing princely ornaments and holding a lotus blossom. As Avalokitesvara-Simhanada ("with the voice of a lion") he is depicted seated on a roaring lion, carrying a sword rising out of a lotus and a trident entwined with a snake; in this form he is invoked to cure disease. Often he is shown seated on a lotus throne in a "sportive" posture (lalitasana), apparently taking his ease. Another form shows him with from two to twelve arms (usually six), usually seated, holding the cintramani (wish-fulfilling jewel) and wheel, which symbolize his great capacity for saving beings. Two other popular forms that originate in esoteric Buddhism are Ekadasamukha (eleven-headed"), able to look in all directions to save creatures, and "thousand-armed," with an eye in each hand. These symbolize the power of the enlightened mind to see and respond to the different needs of all beings simultaneously, because, having moved beyond the distinction of 'T' and "other," such a mind encompasses all things and moves freely without distraction. Other popular forms of Avalokitesvara include Cundi-Avalokitesvara (see §5) and the "horse-head" Avalokitesvara, shown with a fierce face and a horse's head in the headdress (probably related to the Tibetan protector of horses, Hayagriva). All of these representations became popular in China and Japan from the eighth century AD.

 

 
 
 

            In the Avatamsaka Sutra and elsewhere we find descriptions of Avalokitesvara's residence, the mountain Potalaka, which can be reached from this world. Some descriptions place it in the ocean southwest of India and Sri Lanka; the Chinese monk-pilgrim Hsuan-Tsang mentions it as a mountain near Mt. Malaya. Potalaka is described as a rocky mountain, extremely difficult to reach. Avalokitesvara's residence is on the top of the mountain on the shore of a lake, from which a river flows into the sea.
Kuan-yin in popular religion. More than any other Buddhist figure, Kuan-yin (Kannon) has entered fully into the religious imagination not only of Buddhists, but of all Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans. She is enshrined not only in almost all Buddhist temples, but also in most temples of Taoism and Chinese Popular Religion. She figures in many vernacular stories and novels (e.g., the Chinese novel Journey to the West, also translated as Monkey), funerals, popular rituals and festivals (e.g., in Taoist p'u-tu rites for general salvation of those souls reborn in hells). She is the first bodhisattva to whom lay people turn in time of trouble, and whom they seek to worship in gratitude for blessings.

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Further Reading:

Glen Dudbridge, The Legend of Miao-shan (London: Ithaca Press, 1978).

P. Steven Sangren, "Female Gender in Chinese Religious Symbols: Kuan Yin, Ma Tsu, and the 'Eternal Mother'," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 9, no. 1 (1983), pp. 4-25.

R. A. Stein, "Avalokitesvara/Kouan-yin: Exemple de transformation d'un dieu en déesse," Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie, vol. 2 (1986), pp. 17-80.
 

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