Kwan Yin

“ The larger of them had been a temple dedicated to Kwan Yin, whom foreigners have called the Chinese god of mercy. According to the universal superstition, the air is full of superhuman spirits, in dread of whom the people of China constantly live, and to avert the displeasure of whom most of their religious services are performed. Kwan Yin, however, is an exception in character to the malignancy of these imaginary deities. There is no end to the myths that are current as to this god, and they all are stories of deliverance from trouble and danger. ”

“ Now, in China, the dragon is sacred, and Kwan-yin was not at all frightened, for she knew that she had done no wrong.
The animal looked at her for a moment, switched its horrid tail, and shot out fire from its nostrils. Then, dashing the burden from the startled maiden's shoulder, it vanished. Full of fear, Kwan-yin hurried up the hill to the nunnery. As she drew near the inner court, she was amazed to see in the centre of the open space a new building of solid stone. It had sprung up by magic since her last journey down the hill. ”

“ At this point the smoke of the joss-sticks veils the face of Kwan-yin. A woman's voice sings:
Wherefore remember tears?
Shall tears be dried by remembrance?
[Pg 7]
This voice is apparently not heard by the priests and acolytes.
First and third priests chant:
Ah, Kwan-yin, mother of love,
Remember
Those in pain,
Those who are held fast in pain of their own or another's seeking.
Those for whom the world is too difficult
And too beautiful to bear,
All:
Kwan-yin, remember, remember.
First and third priests:
Those who are blind, who shall never read the writing upon the fierce rivers. ”

“ With a farewell wave to her father and mother, Lu-san stepped into the fairy car. As the birds began to rise, a voice from the clouds spoke in tones of softest music: "Thus Kwan-yin, Mother of Mercies, rewards Lu-san, daughter of the earth. Out of the dust spring the flowers; out of the soil comes goodness. Lu-san! that tear which you drew from Kwan-yin's eye fell upon the dry ground and softened it; it touched the hearts of those who loved you not. ”

“ No sooner did his eyes rest upon the fair young face of Kwan-yin [146] than he saw in her the emblem of a purity which deserved no home but heaven.
"Beautiful virgin, doer of many mercies," he began, after addressing her by her title, "I beg you in the name of justice to depart from this bloody kingdom. It is not right that the fairest flower of heaven should enter and shed her fragrance in these halls. Guilt must suffer here, and sin find no reward. Depart thou, then, from my dominion. The peach of immortal life shall be bestowed upon you, and heaven alone shall be your dwelling place." ”

“ For the deity of Puto is the Supreme, enthroned in eternal light, and on his right hand stands Wisdom and on his left, Love. The patron saint of this island is Kwan-yin (the Kwannon of Japan) , the incarnation of divine love and pity, she who has refused to enter paradise, so that, remaining on this sad earth, she may be attentive to the tears and prayers of humanity and depart from it only when the Starry Gates have closed behind the last sinner and sorrow and sighing have fled away like clouds melting into the golden calms of sunset. ”

“ On the eve of the wedding day Kwan-yin slipped out of the palace, and, after a weary journey, arrived at a convent called, "The Cloister of the White Sparrow." She was dressed as a poor maiden. She said she wished to become a nun. The abbess, not knowing who she was, did not receive her kindly. Indeed, she told Kwan-yin that they could not receive her into the sisterhood, that the building was full. Finally, after Kwan-yin had shed many tears, the abbess [138] let her enter, but only as a sort of servant, who might be cast out for the slightest fault. ”

“ Sir, I have one last favour to ask of you. The teachers of the West are very cunning in medicine; they possess many secrets. I have no child, and it is a great sorrow! Bitter is the life of the man who is childless! In vain have we addressed our prayers to the goddess Kwan Yin, my wife remains barren. ”

“ To him the people always turn with their vows and prayers and offerings, in any time of special need. Partly because the women are especially devoted to this cult, and partly because mercy is regarded by the Chinese as a distinctively female trait, the easy-going mythology of the country has allowed Kwan Yin, in later times, to take the form of a woman. When the missionaries came to Tengchow, the priest in charge of this temple was short of funds, and he was easily induced to rent [74] it to them. He left the images of Kwan Yin in the house. ”

“ I limit the power of this mighty Bodhisattva, or Pusa, as Buddhas-to-be are called in India and China. For that pure essence is far above all limitations of sex and, uniting in itself the perfection of both, may be manifested as either, according to need and opportunity. Be that as it may, Puto is the holiest, most immediate home of Kwan-yin, and her influence spreads far beyond its shores and makes the very sea that surrounds it sacred. Therefore it is to this day the Sea of Lilies. ”

“ Above the door facing [140] west was a tablet with these words written on it: "In honour of Kwan-yin, the faithful princess." Inside was a well of the purest water, while, for drawing this water, there a strange machine, the like of which neither Kwan-yin nor the nuns had ever seen.
The sisters knew that this magic well was a monument to Kwan-yin's goodness. For a few days they treated her much better. "Since the gods have dug a well at our very gate," they said, "this girl will no longer need to bear water from the foot of the hill. ”

“ 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] . ”

“ Although the Chinese potters had at their command an endless list of gods, goddesses, saints, and devils in their mythology, they appear to have loved to draw and to model the eight immortals, Kwan-Yin, Si-Wang-Mu, and other Taoist divinities, to the exclusion of all except a few Buddhist gods. This seems to be due to their intense desire for a long life as the highest good. Constant use is found for the character Show, which is written in a hundred different ways, as shown in the robes of Kwan-Yin and Si-Wang-Mu in the illustrations of those goddesses. ”

“ For what strange reason, however, did the gods write this beggar's name on the stone?"
Kwan-yin heard their unkind remarks in silence. She could have explained the meaning of the dragon's gift, but she chose to let her companions remain in ignorance. At last the selfish nuns began to grow careless again, and treated her even worse than before. They could not bear to see the poor girl enjoy a moment's idleness.
"This is a place for work," they told her. "All of us have laboured hard to win our present station. ”

“ Her warm heart was open at all times to the cries of those in trouble. She was kind to the poor and suffering. She won the love of the lower classes, and was to them a sort of goddess to whom they could appeal whenever they were hungry and in need. Some people even believed that she was a fairy who had come to earth from her home within the Western Heaven, while others said that once, long years before, she had lived in the world as a prince instead of a princess. However this may be, one thing is certain—Kwan-yin was pure and good, and well deserved the praises that were showered upon her. ”

“ Again, we find little bottles decorated with dragons and symbolical dogs of Fô or Buddha cut deeply into the paste with a patience and an art unequalled in the productions of the Western Hemisphere. The statuettes of the gods and goddesses are also made in this white porcelain, amongst whom is one to whom we have before referred, Kwan-Yin, a mysterious being, the personification of mercy and goodness, who protects the sailors and saves them from shipwreck, who takes pity on those who suffer in hell and intercedes for them. She also gives children to those who are sterile. ”

“ In his third transformation Kwan-Yin is the informing Spirit or Genius of Water. In China the Dalaï-Lama is believed to be an incarnation of Kwan-Shi-Yin, who in his third terrestrial appearance was a Bodhisattva, while the Teshu Lama is an incarnation of Amitâbha Buddha, or Gautama.
It may be remarked en passant that a writer must indeed have a diseased imagination to discover phallic worship everywhere, as do McClatchey and Hargrave Jennings. ”

“ Kwan-yin, a female figure draped in flowing robes and wearing a benign expression of countenance, is observed in the centre of the apartment, seated in a dim recess behind the altar, on which are an array of brazen bowls, vases, lighted candles, and smouldering incense sticks. On the floor, there are a number of straw mats, for the use of the kneeling worshippers, on one of which an aged woman is bent, supplicating the goddess in behalf of a sick son. ”

“ First and second priests—tenor and bass—chant:
The world is very full of battle;
The speared and plumed forests in their ranks besiege the mountains;
[Pg 6] The flooded fields like scimitars lie between the breasts of the mountains.
The mists ride on bugling winds down the mountains.
Shall not Kwan-yin bear a sword?
Third priest—tenor—chants:
Kwan-yin is no warrior. ”

“ Afterwards Kwan-yin is said to have visited the infernal regions, where the presence of such transcendent goodness and beauty produced an in- stantaneous effect. The instruments of torture dropped from the hands of the executioners, the guilty were liberated, and hell was transformed into paradise itself. The goddess now looks down with a benign expression from her seat upon the lotus throne, but she seems to be urgently in need of repairs.
The priests who dwell within the cave, sit overlooking the
Buddhist Monks. ”

“ KWAN-YIN, THE CHINESE “GODDESS OF MERCY”
From a porcelain figure decorated in soft enamels in the Victoria and Albert Museum
The “Poosa” of Buddhism or the ancient Chinese faith is a powerful protector. Dr. Edkins tells that “Chinese worshippers will sometimes say, for example, that they must spend a little money occasionally to obtain [272] a favour of Poosa, in order to prevent calamities from assailing them. I saw”, he relates, “an instance of this at a town on the sea-coast near Hangchow. ”

“ The next day the princess went back to the same spot. There she found no fewer than a dozen savage beasts working under the command of the friendly tiger, gathering wood for her. In a short time enough brush and firewood had been piled up to last the convent for six months. Thus, even the wild animals of the forest were better able to judge of her goodness than the women of the sisterhood.
At another time when Kwan-yin was toiling up the hill for the twentieth time, carrying two great pails of water on a pole, an enormous dragon faced her in the road. ”

“ The Chinese name is a mistranslation of the Sanskrit name Avalokiteśvara, ‘On-looking Sovereign,’ or even ‘On-looking Self-Existent,’ and means ‘Regarding or Looking on the sounds of the world,’ = ‘Hearer of Prayer.’ Originally, and still in Thibet, Avalokiteśvara 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 Pʽoo-tʽoo, on the China coast, which is a regular place of pilgrimage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In a household in China a daughter-in-law is of very little importance
until she is the mother of a son. Then, from being practically a servant
of her husband's mother, she rises to place of equality and is looked
upon with respect. She has fulfilled her once great duty, the thing for
which she was created: she has given her husband a son to worship
at his grave and at the graves of his ancestors. The great prayer which
rises from the heart of all Chinese women, rich and poor, peasant and
princess, is to Kwan-yin, for the inestimable blessing of sons. "Sons! ”

“ The Guardian Angel of Buddhism As Mary is the guiding spirit of Rome, so is Kuan Yin of the Buddhist faith.
According to a beautiful Chinese legend, Kuan Yin. when about to enter Heaven, heard a cry of anguish rising from the earth beneath her, and, moved by pity, paused as her feet touched the glorious threshold. Hence her name ‘Kuan (Shih) Yin’ (one who notices or hears the cry, or prayer, of the world) .
Kuan Yin was at one time always represented as a man ”

“ His crimes (accumulated) in the capital of Shang; and though the extinction of the dynasty (was imminent) , this gave him no concern, and he wrought not that any sacrifices of fragrant virtue might ascend to Heaven.* The rank odour of the people's resentments, and the drunkenness of his herd of creatures, went loudly up on high, so that Heaven sent down ruin on Yin, and showed no love for it,—because of such excesses. There is not any cruel oppression of Heaven; people themselves accelerate their guilt, (and its punishment.) ”