Guanyin
BODHISATTVA
GUANYIN (KUAN-YIN)
• Avalokitesvara (India), Lokesvara
(Cambodia), Lokanatha (Burma),
Natha Deviyo (Sri Lanka), Chenresig
(Tibet)
• Kennon or kwannon (Japan)
• Kwanse’um (Korea)
• Quan-am (Vietnam)
Guanyin:
Feminization
and
Historicization
AVALOKITEŚVARA TURNED INTO GUANYIN
The Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara entered China
with the translation of the Lotus Sutra
The protagonist of the chapter 25 of the sutra,
titled “Universal Gateway of Guanshiyin” and
the subject of visual depiction
Popularity grew quickly and became protagonist
of an expanding corpus of indigenous sutra,
miracle stories, and visual works.
Glorified as a universal savior and a miracle
worker
• Artistic representations, dating from
10th century, as portrayed in the
Guanyin jing are found in Dunhuang
cave:
• mural Paintings
• Illustrated booklets
• Sculptures
• All feminized images of Guanyin
inspired new female divinities in postTang times:
• The Princess Miaoshan
• The Queen of Heaven, or Mazu
• The Princess of Azure Clouds (Bixia
yuanjun)
• The Unborn Mother (Wusheng laomu)
• Although perceived as male in early
times, Guanyin was in fact androgynous,
neither specifically female nor masculine
• His masculine image motivated the
creation of a prestigious Deities of Daoist
pantheon named the “Heavenly
Venerable Savior from Suffering” (jiùkǔ
tiānzūn 救苦天尊)
Guanyin and
Gender
Polychromed Wood
95 x 65 inches
(241.3 cm)
Chinese
Shanxi Province
Liao Dynasty
(A.D. 907-1125)
Guanyin, Late Northern Song Dynasty
(960-1127)
• Guanyin’s
Feminization of feminization in
Guanyin
the context of
and Gender
traditional
Relations
Chinese culture
and of gender
relations
Why must Guanyin have become a goddess anyway?
• Chinese image of male/female
differences
– Chinese conceptualization of the
quality of compassion: it is a
female/maternal virtue
– Chinese cultural tradition defines:
•intellect and reason as masculine
traits,
•whereas emotion and feeling as
feminine ones
In a Chinese family:
father is regarded as
strict, mother
compassionate (Yanfu
cimu)
• Wisdom is an attribute
of father; compassion,
that of mother
•
Bodhisattva, large wood
sculpture, Song Dynasty
• Indian view:
– Mother, symbol of wisdom
– Father, love
– Wisdom is a dominant feminine
quality
– Compassion, masculine
Guanyin Must be Feminine: other rationales
• Absence of powerful female deities
– Nu Wa, Queen Mother of the West were shortlived
– Male gods dominated the pantheon of Chinese
folk religions
– A female Guanyin is the mother figure par
excellence; she “loves” indiscriminatingly
1000-armed Kannon (Senju Kannon)
8th century, Fujii-dera (in Osaka)
Vietnam, Hanoi region
Tibetan form of
Avalokiteśvara ( Four-armed
Chenrezig)
Avalokiteshvara in South Vietnam
(8th and 9th century Bronze,
Museum of the history of Ho Chi
Minh City),
Seated statue of Senju-Kannon,
Kyoto, Sanjusangen-do
• Guanyin’s abilities:
• Transformation in the sense of
polymorphism
– thirty-three forms
– Can transgress all distinctions of gender, age,
social or spiritual status
– Can be a Buddha, Brama, a Brahman, an elder, a
rich man’s wife, a sovereign or a simple official,
a minister or a monk, a boy or a girl, a divinity,
a yakşa or a nāga,
DAOIST VERSION OF THE GUANYIN JING
• The Scripture of the Savior from Suffering
• A Daoist apocryphal scripture written in
response to Buddhist Guanyin jing, which is the
25th chapter of the Lotus Sutra, “Universal
Gateway of Guanyin”
• A new Daoist deity named the Heavenly
Venerable Savior from Suffering (Jiù kǔ tiān
zūn ) was created in emulation of Guanyin.
•Content of the Text
• Preached by Heavenly Venerable of Primordial
Commencement (0r Heavenly Worthy of Primordial
Beginning, Yuánshǐ tiānzūn 原始天尊) to a divine
audience
• His abilities
•Transform his body in as many forms as there are
sands
•Can be an immortal lad or a jade maiden, a lordemperor or a sage, a Heavenly Venerable or a
Perfected One, a vajra king, demon king, Heavenly
Master, Daoist master,…medation master
•Has innumerable supernatural powers, countless
metamorphoses
The text describes four
of his transformations
from a young man to:
A Heavenly Venerable
holding a willow branch and
pure water bottle
A Lord-emperor holding a
scepter
A Perfected One carrying a
divine light
A barefoot woman
wearing a five-colored
brocade costume and
holding a gold sword
Jiuku tianzun
Guanyin
• Assumes different roles and bears appellation
for each role
• In heaven, he is Deity of the Happiness of Great
Unity
• On earth, he is Great Benevolence
• In hell, he is the Lord-Emperor of Solar
Brightness
• When chasing away the evil of heretic ways, he
is Raja-lion (lion king)
• In the infinite Office of Water, he is the LordEmperor of the Abyss
• The text stresses the importance of invoking
the Venerable’s name, and the scripture
• one can avoid the Eight Hardships and get through
difficulty or peril, be saved from thirteen critical or
perilous situations
• Different people will benefit from the deity in
different ways…
• It aims to reveal Jiuku tianzun’s bodhisattvalike qualities to all sentient beings
• His mission is exactly like Guanyin’s, to save
all who are in danger or in dire
predicaments
• The text was known in the Song, and the
popularity of the Jiuku tianzun cult was
revived
• acquired a dominant place in Daoist
mortuary liturgy, notably the ceremonies
for the “Universal Salvation” festival, or
the Pǔdù 普度
• in the “lake of blood” (xuě hú 血湖) rituals,
performed for the posthumous redemption
of women who, having committed sins of
femal blood pollution, were believed to
have fallen into a fearful lake of blood
A DAOIST SCRIPTURE &
A DAOIST BODHISATTVA
• Daoists have to show that the Scripture of the
Savior from Suffering is unarguably a Daoist text
and Jiuku tianzun is a genuine Daoist deity, who
• Embodies the Dao and a cosmic divinity
imbued with all the Yang forces
• Dwells in the east, the world of Great
Happiness, and named “the essence of the
Nine Yang” (jiǔyáng zhī jīng 九陽之精)
• Descends to earth on the third and ninth days
of each month
• The deity is of exceptional charisma and
can only be described by typical Daoist
vocabulary:
• The most saintly (sheng)
• The most venerable (zun)
• Noblest (gui)
• The most efficacious (ling)
• His compassion is on a par with that of Guanyin
• He is the savior of beings tormented by a long
list of perils:
• Disease, calamity, slavery, shipwreck,
thunder, familial conflict, political
problems, bandits, wild beasts, risky
childbirth, obstacles to religious practice,
imprisonment, condemnation to hell, and
corvée labor…
• He answers instantaneously and directly
to anyone who is in danger and calls for
help, winning the title of “Heavenly
Venerable who Responds to the Calls [of
the World]”
• How to get his help?
• Prayer: Invocation of his name, as
many times as possible
• Recitation of the Scripture of the
Savior from Suffering
• Jiuku tianzun’s abilities:
• Transformation in the sense of
polymorphism
• a thousand changes and ten thousand
transformations
• Infinite transformations (as many as there are
sands of the Ganges)
• can transform to minor Buddhist divinities,
although he prefers to maintain his Daoist
identity.
• Images used basically in rituals:
• Mortuary ceremonies
• Production of images follows common mortuary
rules
• For the “seven sevens” service: based on Buddhist
funeral rite schedule
• numbers of images correspond to the forty-nine
days of the intermediate existence
• First seven: one single images
• Second seven: two images
• Third seven: three images
• ….
• For the “hundredth-day” service:
• 100 images
• Mobile images: Mass-produced images have
been used as votive offerings to Daoist
temples since the Tang dynasty
• His images in different forms have been
mass-produced since the Tang for personal,
devotional use
• Painted, molded, sculpted…
• His images were installed not only in temples
and public sanctuaries, but in a faithful’s
private “pure chamber” for meditational and
devotional practices
• Numerous images and statues have been
created and recreated since post-Tang
• Often depicted as seated on a nine-headed
lion and holding a willow twig and a cup
• Often found in a Daoist temple sharing the
hall with bodhisattva Puxian
(Samatabhadra) and Wenshu (Mañjuśrī )
Samatabhadra
Mañjuśrī