The source of Guanyin's beliefs
The name of Avalokiteśvara is Avalokiteśvara, also known as Avalokiteśvara, Avalokiteśvara, Avalokiteśvara, etc. The Lotus Sutra Pumen is the fundamental text of the belief of Guanyin Bodhisattva, and for Chinese, Guanyin Bodhisattva seeks voice to save suffering, and manifests into 33 different forms to transform all sentient beings. Guanyin Bodhisattva "Bodhi is the cause, great compassion is the foundation", as the embodiment of perfect compassion, it responds to the kind, and has salvation.
In the seventh year of Jin Taikang (286), after Zhu Fahu translated the Zhengfa Hua Sutra, which was closely related to the Guanyin belief, the Guanyin belief in the mainland began to unveil. At the end of the fourth century, Xie Shiki (active 371–396) collected the earliest collection of Guanyin spiritual examinations in the history of mainland Buddhism, the Guanyin Fulfillment Record, which shows that the belief of Guanyin Bodhisattva was very popular at that time. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, Guanyin legends and spiritual stories emerged one after another. During the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, Guanyin-themed operas, treasure scrolls, and novels were even more colorful, and these literary works contributed to the spread of Guanyin's beliefs. Today, the Guanyin Dojo of Putuo Mountain in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province, is famous as one of the four famous mountains in China.
In the Buddhist scriptures of mainland China, there are nearly 100 Tantric and Tantric texts related to Guanyin, in addition to many apocryphal scriptures compiled by Chinese people. Among the important Buddhist scriptures, there are many classics such as the Lotus Sutra • Pumen Pin, the Huayan Sutra • Entering the Dharma Realm, the Amitabha Sutra of the Pure Land System, the Amitayus Sutra, the Heart Sutra of the Prajna Lineage, the Heart Sutra of the Eleven-Faced Gods, the Great Compassion Dharani of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara with Thousand Hands and Thousand Eyes, and the True Word Sutra of the Unempty Sorrow. The sutras that appeared in the fourth and fifth centuries AD included the "Gao Wang Guanyin Sutra", "Guanyin Samadhi Sutra" and other apocryphal scriptures. These materials illustrate the richness of the content of Guanyin's belief and the popularization of the faith.
Types of Kannon images
According to the classical content, the Guanyin image is divided into Xianjiao Guanyin, Esoteric Guanyin, and Sinicized Guanyin. The Sutra of Avalokiteśvara, translated by Shunavara (394-468), says: "The great pessimistic Avalokiteshvara has mercy on saving all sentient beings, so he says curses: Teach all sentient beings to do what they say, and those who are now should call Nan Wu Buddha, Nan Wu Sang, Nan Wu Sang, Nan Wu Guanyin Bodhisattva Mahasa, great compassion and great name to save those who suffer from suffering, so that the three are called the Three Jewels, the three are the names of Guanyin Bodhisattva, burn all the famous incense, throw the five bodies to the ground, turn to the West, wholeheartedly, let the breath be fixed, in order to avoid suffering, please Guanyin." The Avalokiteshvara Sutra is an early Esoteric Dharani classic, and the text mentions him as "a rescuer of suffering" and "throws the five bodies to the ground and turns to the West", and the content has the characteristics of the Lotus system and the Pure Land system, which shows that Guanyin is a belief across different sutras and sects, which is very common, no wonder there is now a saying of "Guanyin".
01 Xianjiao Guanyin
(Avalokiteshvara Gandhara 2nd-3rd century)
(Dazu Shimen Mountain Guanyin Cave Northern Song Dynasty)
The Fahua Pumen Pin describes Guanyin Bodhisattva as "praying in a thousand places for a thousand answers, and the sea of suffering is often used as a boat for ferrying people", so it is common to see scenes of Guanyin saving suffering and saving hardship in Buddha art. The relief sculpture on the side of the entrance of Cave 4 of the Ajanta Caves in India in the fifth century shows the picture of Guanyin Bodhisattva saving elephants, wild beasts, rakshasa, and fire.
(Guanyin Rescue Suffering, Ajanta Caves, India, Side of Cave 4 Entrance, 5th century)
The Dunhuang mural Mogao Grottoes Cave 303 that appeared in the Sui Dynasty of China is a herringbone mural, which not only shows the picture of Guanyin's rescue, such as fire fighting, water disaster, Rakshasa disaster, etc., but also shows the picture of Guanyin Bodhisattva transformed into 33 different appearances.
(Guanyin Jing changed Dunhuang mural, Mogao Grottoes Cave 303, herringbone roof, Sui Dynasty)
According to the Pure Land scriptures, Avalokiteśvara and Daishi Bodhisattva are servants of Amitabha Buddha, so they often appear in the form of the three Amida Buddhas, and the figure of Avalokiteshvara can often be seen in Western Pure Land maps. The Kanamitayus Sutra states: "The second time should also observe Avalokiteshvara... On top of the Treasure of Bilengamani, it is considered the crown of heaven. There is a Standing Buddha in its heavenly crown... The second view of the general trend to the bodhisattva... On the bun there is a treasure bottle, filled with light, and the Buddha's deeds are universalized. ”
Therefore, the crown of Buddha has become an important feature of Guanyin Bodhisattva. In the 13th century of Western Xia, Guanyin Bodhisattva, the Buddha with the crown and the Bodhisattva with the treasure bottle, held a large golden lotus platform to welcome the deceased and pass away to the Western Pure Land.
(Western Three Saints Come to Welcome Picture Part Western Xia)
In addition to following the Indian iconographic tradition, Chinese also created many images of Guanyin Bodhisattva that are not seen in India and the Western Regions. The "Yangliu Guanyin" that appeared during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, he held a willow branch in one hand and a clean bottle in the other. Its classic is based on the "Please Guanyin Sutra", which is a statue of Guanyin that appeared in China.
(Tang dynasty copper gilt clean bottle Guanyin)
According to the Huayan Sutra • Entering the Dharma Realm, in order to seek the essence of the Dharma, the children of good fortune visited 53 good knowledge successively and asked about the process of becoming a Buddha. Avalokiteshvara, one of the fifty-three good knowledge, lived in the southern part of Mount Potalaka, where not only was "the treasures perfect, the groves were full of fruits, and the springs and marshes were abundant," but also "the springs lingered, the woods were rich, and the herbs were soft." Later generations of Buddhists called Mount Putraja the pure land of Avalokiteshvara. In the statue, the stone seat is often used to symbolize the pure land of Guanyin Bodhisattva.
(Liao Dynasty wood carving painted freely in Guanyin)
02 Esoteric Guanyin
As early as the Northern Zhou Dynasty, there was a translation of the "Eleven-Faced Guanyin Divine Mantra", which was not widely circulated at that time. Until the rise of esotericism in the Tang Dynasty. The eleven sides are: the first three sides of kindness, seeing good beings, great compassion and happiness; The three sides on the left face are disgusted, seeing evil beings, and giving birth to great compassion (mighty submission); The bodhisattva on the right side faces the dog's teeth come out, and the pure karma practitioner persuades him to enter the Buddhist path; On the last side, he laughed violently, seeing good and evil mixed beings, and laughed strangely; The top side is the Buddha face. Each of the eleven sides wears a flower crown, and each of the flower crowns contains Amitabha Buddha.
(Tang Dynasty Eleven-faced Guanyin Statue)
Thousand Hands and Thousand Eyes Guanyin (Taipei National Palace Collection) has one eye in one hand, a total of thousands of hands, so there are a thousand eyes, each with different objects in the hand, the sun and moon, the sword halberd, the clean bottle, the willow and so on. Guanyin Bodhisattva has thirty-two Buddha heads on top and protectors (Dragon Babu) below. The statue of Guanyin with a thousand hands and thousand eyes does not have a thousand hands, but only forty arms. Buddhism believes that the world is divided into three realms: the world of color, the world of desire, and the world of no color. In the maze of the cycle of life and death, it is divided into twenty-five categories according to different results. Each hand of the forty-armed Guanyin can save the twenty-five bounded beings, so it is another form of the Thousand Hands and Thousand Eyes Guanyin.
(Southern Song Dynasty, Thousand Hands Guanyin)
(Dali Guo, multi-armed Guanyin)
Tang Dynasty horse head Guanyin (now angry, symbolizing the compassion of Guanyin Bodhisattva to help sentient beings to get rid of the three poisonous troubles such as greed and other diseases, and to eliminate suffering and calamity). In addition to axes, sticks and other objects, the rosaries, lotus flowers, and clean vases in the hands of the horse-headed Guanyin Bodhisattva are all utensils that are often held in the hands of the Xianjiao Guanyin.
(Horse Head Guanyin Tang Dynasty)
03 Sinicization of Guanyin
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there was a compilation of the Guanyin Bodhisattva's fulfillment on the mainland. Since the Song Dynasty, literary works related to Guanyin, such as notebook novels, opera legends, and apocryphal scrolls, have emerged one after another, and Guanyin has become the protagonist of mainland Buddhist literature. These literary works not only contributed to the spread of Guanyin's beliefs, but also on their basis, the mainland developed images that are not found in Buddhist scriptures, such as Guanyin in the Fish Basket, Guanyin in the South China Sea, and Guanyin in White Clothes, which added a lot of brilliance to Chinese art.
In addition, there were many combinations of Guanyin group images in the Song Dynasty, such as the Thirteen Guanyin Grottoes in Dazu Beishan, which were grottoes of the Song Dynasty, in addition to the Guanyin sitting freely in the middle, the other twelve Guanyin had different holdings in their hands, and many of them are not found in the classic records, such works are sometimes seen in the grottoes of the Song Dynasty in Sichuan.
(Thirteen Guanyin Grottoes, Dazu Beishan, Song Dynasty)
Of all the Chinese Guanyin, Nanhai Guanyin is the most familiar. According to the scriptures and treasure scrolls related to Nanhai Guanyin, a filial white parrot once followed Guanyin to the South China Sea to practice. It is also said that Shancai and Dragon Girl are both disciples of Guanyin, so in the statues of Guanyin in the South China Sea since the Ming Dynasty, parrots, Good Fortune, and Dragon Girl can often be found.
(Ming Dynasty, Fahai Temple mural, Water Moon Guanyin)
In addition, the belief in the Nine Lotus Guanyin was also popular at the end of the Ming Dynasty. It is said that in her dream, the Nine Lotus Bodhisattva taught her the "Buddha Says that the Great Compassion of the Holy Nine Lotus Bodhisattva Incarnated in the World Venerable Sutra" (also known as the "Nine Lotus Sutra"), after waking up, she recorded the full text, and the Shenzong included this sutra in the sutra, and claimed that the Empress Dowager Cisheng was the incarnation of the Nine Lotus Bodhisattva. As for the image of the Nine Lotus Bodhisattva, it is said that the Divine Sect "ordered to take the portrait of Guanyin of Wu Daozi in Kuzang and change it to the appearance of a merciful saint, and called it the statue of the Nine Lotus Guanyin." ”
(Ming Dynasty Nine Lotus Guanyin Map)
Since the fifteenth year of Wanli (1587), Leshi has been awarded to temples around the world for worship. At the same time, (Qing) Song Qifeng's "Barnyard Theory" volume Siyun: "The fifth son of the emperor gave birth to pox, and covered (Emperor Chongzhen) and Concubine Tian's favorite." Last night in the concubine's palace, I dreamed that I saw Empress Dowager Li (that is, Empress Dowager Cisheng) appear for half a day sitting on a golden lotus, like a picture of the world in white, with a screw bun on her head and a dainluo. "Therefore, the Nine Lotus Guanyin has many buns of screws, and is covered with Yingluo, and there are nine large lotus flowers on her side.
04 Guanyin is male or female
Mi Fu (1051-1107) "History of Painting" contains Dai Kui's (326-392) "Guanyin" in his family's collection: "His Xiangtiannan... Guanyin is not as good as the goddess of heaven. It can be seen that during the Northern Song Dynasty, the female minister Guanyin had appeared.
Ming Dynasty Fish Basket Guanyin
The novels of the Song people once used the phrase "Smile is delicate, beautiful eyes are long, and the other is beautiful" to describe the statue of Guanyin. It is no wonder that the famous singing literature "Xixian Ji" in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, when describing Zhang Sheng's first time seeing Cui Yingying in a monastery, his first feeling was that Cui Yingying was as beautiful as the water and moon Guanyin. Indeed, since the Song and Yuan dynasties, there have been many legends of Guanyin turning into a woman, and many works of the female Guanyin have also been discovered.
Ming Dynasty Ding Yunpeng White Portrait of Guanyin
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Guanyin was particularly revered by female believers, but the scribe Hu Yinglin (1551-1602) was quite unimpressed by this phenomenon, and in his "Guanyin Daishi Manifestation Lingying Ji", he began by saying: "Guanyin Daishi will never hear of a woman." He examined miscellaneous novels from the Six Dynasties and found that "statues in the Tang Dynasty were not women."
Tang Dynasty Dunhuang Tibetan Scripture Cave silk painting Erguan Shiyin Bodhisattva Chart
"Between the Song and the Yuan, the statue of Guanyin also has a woman, but it is in disguise, not necessarily as it was in recent times." He also said: "And the name of Guanyin as a woman should have originated in the Song Dynasty, and the monk was simple and ignorant, so he thought that the queen and daughter of Miaozhuang were also laughable." Now Guanyin is a woman, so the world shows its dream signs, and there is no manhood, and it is common to take Guanyin as a woman. I don't know that dreams are born in the heart, signs are in the eyes, and the eyes are gathered, and they are not men, but they appear in a trance and become women. ”
The old title Yuan Dynasty Yi Shizhen's "Lang Huan Ji" said: "One person asked Ying Yuanyu: What is the Guanyin Daishi woman? Answer: Women too. Another person asked: Jingyun Guanyin Bodhisattva, a brave husband, why not? Answer: Men too. Another person knows: Guanyin is one person, and the son is a man and a woman, is it not contradictory? Answer: No.
Song Dynasty Guanyin wood carvings Rijksmuseum
Guanyin is invisible, so the Pumen Pin says that since there are all sentient beings, everything that flies away to the midge chicken can be heard, how can it be straight for men and women? Xie Zhaoxuan (1567-1624) also said in the Five Miscellaneous Tricks: "The teachings of the Buddha are just empty and silent, but Guanyin Daishi is merciful to all sentient beings and lives in every way, just like Mencius is to Confucius." Tuas is impermanent in disguise, and the makeup and plastic drawings are mostly women's appearances, which is not enough. If you are a great man, you must be a woman. If you become a Buddha, there is nothing between men and women. ”
(Qing Dynasty, Gai Qi, male minister Guanyin)
Is Guanyin male or female? Guanyin has great compassion, and in order to save all sentient beings, he has incarnated tens of thousands, so he can not only turn into a woman, but also into a man, and even into an animal and an insect. It should be "in what body it is, and in what body it is before all beings."