Our Devi of the Week Tara Devi = Kuan Yin

March 21, 2003

Nila Saraswati Tara : The Devi Who Guides Through Troubles

O Mother, Devi Nilasaraswati Tara

Refuge with Thee I crave.

Giver of prosperity and wealth art Thou

To those who worship Thee.

Standing on Siva,

Thy right foot upon His breast and left upon His thigh

Ever art Thou, with smiling lotus-like face.

Thy three eyes are, as it were, full-blown lotuses.

In Thy hands, Thou holdest a knife, a skull, a lotus, and a sword.

Thou art the presiding Devi of speech.

Thou art the creeper which grants all desires.

Thou art the giver of all siddi,

And the power to write both verse and prose.

Three are Thine eyes, as it were blue lotuses.

Ocean of Kindness and compassion art Thou.

I pray to Thee of Thy mercy shower upon me the nectar of prosperity.

O Sharbha, I pray Thee remove my fears,

Proud Lady, brilliant are Thy garments,

Bright with coiling serpents,

Thou are clad in tiger skin,

Thy waist is adorned with tiny tinkling bells.

Thou holdest the heads of two demons

Drippling with blood, just severed by the sword.

Thy waist is girdles with heads of demons,

As it were with a garland.

Thus art Thou beautiful,

O formidable One.

O Devi Tara, attained with difficulty,

I take refuge with Thee.

Thou art beautiful with form both amorous and charmful.

Thou art Bindu and the half-moon.

Whose substance is Hrim and Phat

Thou art mantra and the shelter of all.

Thy forms are threefold –

Gross, Subtle, and Supreme.

Thou art beyond the reach of Veda.

By the service of Thy lotus feet,

Men of good deed attain sayujya liberation.

O Paramesvari Thou art the Spouse of Him

Who is Brahman, Visn and the three-eyed One.

O Mother! He who neglects to serve Thy lotus feet,

But serves instead the Devas, Indra and others,

Who are themselves pluged in the ocean of samsara.

Is indeed and most truly ignorant.

O Mother! Those Devas who receive on their crowns

The polent which comes from Thy lotus-like feet.

Are able to keep their promise of conquest,

And to gain victory over their enemies in battle –

Such, without a doubt, are sheltered in Thy lap.

But their enemies who send forth the defiant challenge.

"I am a Deva, and none is equal to me in the whole world"

Perish and meet such death as befits them.

Bhuta, Preta, Pisacha, Raksasa,

Daitya, foremost of Danava, Yaksa, Lords of Naga.

Wrathful Dakini, great birds, tigers and other dreadful creatures

Forthwith take flight at but the remembrance of Thy name,

And are powerless to do aught of evil.

Who serves Thy lotus feet, to him siddhi is given.

He surpasses the Lord of Speech.

And obtains the beauty of Kama,

He can charm and paralyze multitudes of elephants upon the field of

battle,

And has power to stay the flow of water.

The Siddha and prosperity are under his control.

Phalasloka

Whoever, being pure and self-controlled,

Reads this eight-versed hymns to Tara,

At morn, at noon, at evening,

To him is given

The power to write beautifully in prose or verse,

Knowledge in all Sastra,

Imperishable fortune,

The Enjoyment of whatsoever he may desire,

Fame, beauty, and wealth,

The love of all men,

And at the end liberation.

>From Nila Tantra

Arthur Avalon

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Kuan Yin, Goddess of Compassion

I made the vow

and kept my word

I reached enlightenment

but rather than pass over

to the state of eternal bliss

I retain human form

till all beings attain enlightenment

Keeping human form

enabled me to know more deeply

the pain others experience

Because of my deep feelings

because of my understanding

of misery and suffering

because of my decision

I am called The Compassionate One

She Whose Name Alleviates All Suffering

But wouldn't you prefer to wait

feeling what others feel

suffering what others suffer

knowing their pain as your own

wait till the end of all suffering and pain

till all beings attain enlightenment?

For me there was no other choice

March 22, 2003

Kuan Yin is also 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

March 22, 2003

Greetings all,

There is a Kuan Yin temple here in Singapore at Waterloo Street (

Bugis).Many devotees ( not only chinese but also indians) come here to offer

their prayers to her.They offer her lotus usually. Also alot of her devotees

told me Kuan Yin is a male who was painted to look like a lady,so people

concluded that Kuan Yin was a woman. I dont know how true this is,anyone know

more?

Nora <ashwini_puralasamy wrote:Kuan Yin is also sometimes known as

Guanyin and in Japan she is