Avalokiteśvara

“ Originally, and still in Thibet, Avalokitesvara had only male attributes, but in China and Japan (Kwannon) , this deity (such popularly she is) is represented as a woman, “Kwan-yin, the greatly gentle, with a thousand arms and a thousand eyes;” and has her principal seat in the island of P’oo-t’oo, on the China coast, which is a regular place of pilgrimage. To the worshippers of whom Fâ-Hien speaks, Kwan-she-yin would only be Avalokitesvara. ”

“ With workmanship showing mastery of a fully established technique in details, the painting combines an air of individual feeling which makes its subject one of the finest single figures amongst our Ch‘ien-fo-tung paintings.
Avalokiteśvara stands facing the spectator, with head erect but eyes downcast. His pose, with the weight thrown on the right hip and the body aslant to the left shoulder, is characteristically Indian. The head is that of a young man and shows marked influence of Gandhāra art in its features. The nose is long and straight, the brow high, and the eyes only slightly oblique. ”

“ For that reason, young man of good family, the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Avalokitesvara is named Avalokitesvara [3] .
If a man given up to capital punishment 3 implores Avalokitesvara, young man of good family, the swords of the executioners shall snap asunder 4 . Further, young man of good family, if the whole triple chiliocosm were teeming with goblins and giants, they would by virtue of the name of the Bodhisattva Mahisattva Avalokitesvara being pronounced lose the faculty of sight in their wicked designs [4] . If some creature, young man of good ”

“ But the ease and distinction of the drawing, which the simplicity of the figure and the scarcity of colour make all the more noticeable, betoken the Chinese artist’s brush. The slender-waisted body leans towards the left shoulder; the limbs are long and slim; the head erect. The face is young and clean-shaven with an expression of serenity in the downcast slightly oblique eyes and the finely curved lips. The hair rises in a high cone above the three-leaved tiara, the front of which shows Avalokiteśvara’s Dhyāni-buddha, Amitābha. The flesh is left uncoloured. ”

“ The former is worshipped by the Mongolians as Okkin Tengri, “the Virgin Goddess”; but in Tibet and China the rôle of the divine virgin is filled by Kwan Yin, a personification of Avalokiteśvara as the heavenly word, who is often represented with a child in her arms. Srong Tsan Gampo has also become a saint, being looked upon as an incarnation of Avalokiteśvara; and the description in the ecclesiastical historians of the measures he took for the welfare of his subjects do great credit to their ideal of the perfect Buddhist king. ”

“ It was not till the introduction of the worship of Avalokiteṡvara that the followers of Buddha thought of endowing the figures of deified saints with an extra number of heads and arms.
The process of Avalokiteṡvara’s (Padma-pāṇi’s) creation and the formation of his numerous heads by the Dhyāni-Buddha Amitābha, is thus described (Schlagintweit, p. 84, abridged) :—
Once upon a time Amitābha, after giving himself up to earnest meditation, caused a red ray of light to issue from his right eye, which brought Padma-pāṇi Bodhi-sattva into existence ”

“ At that time, after the Lord had spoken, Elder Śāriputra and Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva-mahāsattva both experienced great bliss. Then the multitude of devas, humans, asuras, and gandharvas heard what the Buddha had truly said. With great bliss, they believed, accepted, and practiced in accordance. ”

“ Then, how can a nation call itself Buddhist whose religion consists chiefly in a belief in a divine Amitâbha and his son Avalokitesvara, and in a hope of eternal life in the paradise of Sukhavatî?
[pg 238] Postscript: Oxford, March 10, 1880.
The hope which I expressed in my paper on “Sanskrit Texts discovered in Japan,” viz. that other Sanskrit texts might still come to light in Japan or China, has been fulfilled sooner than I expected. Mr. A Wylie wrote to me on March 3 that he had brought a number of Sanskrit-Chinese books from Japan, and he afterwards kindly sent them to me to examine. ”

“ In later times fervent adherents of the Mahâyâna really held that belief, as we know from the example of the pious Hiouen Thsang, who was evidently as earnest in his belief that the Lord once trod the soil of India as he was convinced of Mañgusrî, Maitreya, and Avalokitesvara existing as animated beings. Whether the system of the Lotus can be said to agree with what is supposed to be 'genuine' Buddhism, it is not here the place to discuss. ”

“ As Avalokiteśvara is incarnate Pity, so, among other great Bodhisattvas, Mañjuśrī embodies the Spirit of Wisdom, Samantabhadra stands for the power of the Church, Kṣitigarbha is the breaker of the powers of Hell and the illuminator of its darkness. Bhaiṣajyarāja is the lord of medicine; and Maitreya is the Buddha that is to come.
Besides the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the Lokapālas or Demon Kings who guard each one of the Four Quarters of the World are frequent figures in art. These are survivals of primitive demon-worship adopted into Buddhism. ”

“ The rich painted border of flower sprays which encloses the whole suggests the effect of naturalistic embroidery such as is found among the textile relics from the Thousand Buddhas.89
Avalokiteśvara’s figure single-headed appears here too, seated within a large circular halo formed by his ‘thousand arms’, each showing the symbolic open eye on the palm. Against this background are numerous inner arms, all except four in the centre line of the figure carrying a multiplicity of sacred emblems well known to Buddhist iconography, such as the discs of the Sun and Moon, trident, Vajra, &c. ”

“ When his worship was introduced into China the name he received was Kwan-she-yin or Kwan-yin (in Japan Kwan-non) —a name denoting (according to Professor Legge) ‘one who looks down on the sounds of the world, and listens to the voices of men.’
We know that each of the chief Hindū gods had his female counterpart or Ṡakti, who is often more worshipped than the male. Similarly the female counterpart of the male Avalokiteṡvara is the form of the god chiefly worshipped in China and Japan [98] . ”

“ But such small images set in the head of a larger figure are not distinctive of Avalokita: they are found [14] in other Buddhist statues and paintings and also outside India, for instance at Palmyra. The Tibetan translation of the name [19] means he who sees with bright eyes. Hsüan Chuang's rendering Kwan-tzǔ-tsai [20] expresses the same idea, but the more usual Chinese translation Kuan-yin or Kuan-shih-yin, the deity who looks upon voices or the region of voices, seems to imply a verbal misunderstanding. ”

“ It remains to say a word of the numerous goddesses who play an important part in Tibetan Buddhism, as in Hindu Tantrism. They are usually represented as the female counterparts or better halves of male deities, but some are self-sufficient. The greatest of these goddesses is Târâ [1043] . Though Lamaist theology describes her as the spouse of Avalokita she is not a single personality but a generic name applied to a whole class of female deities and, as in many other cases, no clear distinction is drawn between her attendants and the forms which she herself assumes. ”

“ The majority of mankind belongs to the seventh sub-race of the Fourth Root-Race—the above-mentioned Chinamen and their off-shoots and branchlets (Malayans, Mongolians, Tibetans, Hungarians, Finns, and even the Esquimaux are all remnants of this last offshoot) .
Padmapâni or Avalokiteshvara, in Sanskrit, is, in Tibetan, Chenresi. Now, Avalokiteshvara is the great Logos in its higher aspect and in the divine regions. But in the manifested planes, he is, like Daksha, the Progenitor (in a spiritual sense) of men. ”

“ The latter under the name of Kuan-yin or Kwannon has become the most popular goddess of China and Japan, but is apparently a form of Avalokita. The god in his desire to help mankind assumes many shapes and, among these, divine womanhood has by the suffrage of millions been judged the most appropriate. But Târâ was not originally the same as Kuan-yin, though the fact that she accompanies Avalokita and shares his attributes may have made it easier to think of him in female form. ”

“ The idea of a benevolent deity to be worshipped with devotion and faith and not with ceremonies is strange to old Buddhism and old Brahmanism alike. It was a popular idea which became so strong that neither priests nor Bhikshus could ignore it and in its ultimate result it is hard to say whether Buddhist or Brahmanic elements are more prominent. Both Avalokita and Krishna are Devas. ”

“ This was the perverse idea that guided the people of the Atlantean Continent. The intellectual giants, maddened by this material grandeur, did not look for any world beyond the one they lived in. They cared not for Svarga, nor for the sacrifices that led to Svarga. The flow of evolution, the breath of Íshvara seemed to stand still for a time as it were. The human will tried to override the divine will. There was chaos and disorder, which tended to cause dissolution in the universe. Hence Râvana was a Râkshasa. ”

“ Certain, however, it is that at least one of his Avatars is clearly based on the Vedic conception of the sun-god, viz. that of the dwarf who claims as much ground as he can cover by three steps, and then gains the whole universe by his three mighty strides. Of the ten or more Avatars, assumed by different authorities, only two have entered to any considerable extent into the religious worship of the people, viz. those of Rama (or Ramachandra) and Krishna, the favourite heroes of epic romance. ”

“ In her turn, Shiva's wife Kali is the allegory of earth, fructified by the flames of the sun. Her educated worshippers say they allow themselves to believe their goddess is fond of human sacrifices, only on the strength of the fact that earth is fond of organical decomposition, which fertilizes her, and helps her to call forth new forces from the ashes of the dead. The Shivaites, when burning their dead, put an idol of Shiva at the head of the corpse ”

“ We may safely consider the Huzvaresh of the translations of the Avesta as the language of the Sassanian court and hierarchy. Works also like the Bundehesh and Minokhired belong by language and thought to the same period of mystic incubation, when India and Egypt, Babylonia and Greece, were sitting together and gossiping like crazy old women, chattering with toothless gums and silly brains about the dreams and joys of their youth, yet unable to recall one single thought or feeling with that vigour which once gave it life and truth. ”

“ The early Buddhists considered that these spirits, whether called Bodhisattvas or Devas, had attained their high position in the same way as Śâkyamuni himself, that is by the practice of moral and intellectual virtues through countless existences, but subsequently they came to be regarded as emanations or sons of superhuman Buddhas. Thus the Kâraṇḍa-vyûha relates how the original Âdi-Buddha produced Avalokita by meditation and how he in his turn produced the universe with its gods. ”

“ Mr Wells knows that he is indebted to oriental thought and thinks that European religion in the future may be so too, but I do not know if he realizes how nearly his God coincides with the Mahayanist conception of a Bodhisattva such as Avalokita or Mañjuśri. These great beings have, as Bodhisattvas, a beginning: they are not the creators of the world but masters and conquerors of it and helpers of mankind: they have courage and eternal youth and Mañjuśri "bears a sword, that clean discriminating weapon." ”

“ The Earth, or earth-life rather, is the only Avîtchi (Hell) that exists for the men of our humanity on this globe. Avîtchi is a state, not a locality, a counterpart of Devachan. Such a state follows the Soul wherever it goes, whether into Kâma Loka, as a semi-conscious Spook, or into a human body, when reborn to suffer Avîtchi. Our Philosophy recognizes no other Hell. ”

“ The village has a large modern temple of Śiva called Nakleśvara, on the site of some old temple and mostly built of old carved temple stones. In the temple close by are a number of old images of the sun and the boar incarnation of Vishṇu all of about the tenth or eleventh century. The name Nakleśvara would seem to have been derived from Nakuliśa the founder of the Páśupata sect and the temple may originally have had an image of Nakuliśa himself or a liṅga representing Nakulíśa. ”

“ The word Asura, although used in a good sense in the early songs of the Rig-veda, becomes, in the later portions of that literature, as well as in the Brāhmaṇas and Purāṇas, a term which is applied only to evil spirits; they are represented as the constant enemies of the Hindū gods, always making attacks upon the sacrifices offered by devotees. In the Avesta, Asura, in the form of Ahura, becomes a component part of Ahura Mazda, which is the name of God among the 405Pārsīs, whose faith is called “the Ahura religion” [289] in order to distinctively indicate its opposition to the Deva religion. ”

“ In them are to be found many speculations of a more advanced kind than those of the Ṛgveda, yet at the same time the Atharvaveda contains a mass of popular religion which has been taken up and worked over by the same priestly classes to whose activity the other texts are due. It must, therefore, be recognized that the Ṛgveda gives only an imperfect impression of Indian mythology and that, in a sense, it is the work of an aristocracy; but at the same time it is impossible to regard the Atharvaveda as a direct complement of the Ṛgveda and as giving the popular side of the Ṛgvedic religion. ”