Goddess of the Week : Tara [ A repost : Kuan Yin ]

[Guest guest]

nora55_1999

 

 

 

Dakinic Monk : "The Chinese also worship her but I forget her Chinese

name all I know is that she is known as the goddess or mercy in China"

 

 

 

Her name is Kuan Yin sometimes known as Guanyin and in Japan she is

known as Kwannon. She is also known as "the one who hears

prayers/sounds/weeping". She is also protective of women and

children.

 

 

 

Her popularity is enhanced by a Chinese legend, which identifies her

as an indigenous princess called Miao Shan. She was the third

daughter of a King and suffered terrible punishments after refusing

to marry anyone but an ordinary Physician.

 

 

 

She was eventually condemned to public execution, but her body was

taken by the spirits and preserved for resurrection. When the

underworld blossomed into a garden of paradise because of her

presence, she was quickly accorded divine status. As a divinity she

would meditate regularly on the plight of humankind and extend mercy

in answer to every prayer, but she continued to assume physical

incarnations, moving among people in order to help them physically

and spiritually.

 

 

 

However historically, Kwan Yin is an import from the Indian

subcontinent, brought to China by Buddhist missionaries in the form

of a Bodhisattva or Future Buddha. According to the Buddhist

theology, a bodhisattva was an enlightened one, who through

generations had learned how to escape the endless cycle of death and

resurrection that afflicted the rest of the humanity, but who, as an

act of compassion, regularly chose a body in which to be reborn so

that he could help others to reach salvation.

 

 

 

Kwan Yin was originally as Avolokiteshvara, the male bodhisattva of

compassion, and her transformation into a goddess may appear to be

something of an enigma in a religion where women were regarded as

less perfect beings then men.

 

 

 

However when Buddhism was introduced in China under the Han Dynasty

in the 3rd century AD, it soon syncretized with Taoism and

Confucianism.

 

 

 

These religions may have cause the metamorphosis of Avolokiteshvara

by confusing him with an indigenous female deity. The germinal Kwan

Yin may have been the ancient mother Goddess, Nu-Kua, who was a

guardian of humankind, or the Taoist deity called Queen of Heaven.

 

 

 

A bodhisattva combines the attributes of knowledge and compassion,

and in this light it is perhaps not surprisingly that the male

Avolokiteshvara should be assimilated with a Goddess, who often

exercise mercy on her role as the all-knowing judge of the dead.

 

 

 

Om ParaSakthiye Namaha