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c h a p t e r 5 Guanyin in a Taoist Guise He is the most saintly, the most venerable, the most precious, the most efficient. The bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara decisively entered China at the end of the third century with the translation of the most widely revered Buddhist scripture in East Asia, the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law (Saddharmapu ßłarīkasūtra, Miaofa lianhua jing 妙法連華經), or Lotus Sūtra. Its twenty-fifth chapter, the “Universal Gateway of Guanshiyin” (Guanshiyin pumen pin 觀 世音普門品), which is entirely dedicated to the bodhisattva, would have a particularly remarkable legacy, for in Avalokiteśvara (Guan[shi]yin), the Pumen pin introduced a new type of deity to Chinese religious life. The compassionate Guanyin was glorified not only as a universal savior but also as a readily accessible miracle worker rescuing persons in need from impending dangers or critical circumstances. The text’s narration of the fearsome perils from which the bodhisattva could instantaneously and unfailingly deliver a victim who invokes his name would do much to motivate the tremendous expansion of his worship in China. Elaborately described, these seven (or twelve) hazards—including fire, water, shipwreck in the sea of the rākšasa-demons , (falling from Mount Sumeru,) knives and staves, demons, pillory and shackles, (poison and sorcery,) brigands, (wild beasts,) (snakes,) (thunder and Epigraph: Taiyi jiuku hushen miaojing 太一救苦護身妙經 (Dz 35. 5b). . The earliest extant translation of the Lotus Sūtra in Chinese is attributed to Dharmarakša (86 C.E.) and entitled Sūtra of the Lotus of the True Law (Zheng fahua jing 正法華經; 0 fascicles, 7 chapters, T. 63, vol. 9). The most popular is Kumārajīva’s translation (406 C.E.), the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law (Miaofa lianhua jing 妙法蓮華經; 7 fascicles, 7 chapters, T. 6, vol. 9). A third translation was done in 60 C.E. by Jñānagupta and Dharmagupta, under the title Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law with an Additional Chapter (Tianpin miaofa lianhua jing 添品妙法連華經; 7 fascicles, 8 chapters, T. 64, vol. 9). See Shioiri (989): 3–3. . About five thousand copies of the sūtra were found at Dunhuang. On the Pumen pin, see Murase (97); and Yü (00): 75–77. Guanyin in a Taoist Guise 175 storm)—had an enduring impact on the Chinese imagination and were, time and again, pictured in art and literature.3 Besides this, Guanyin’s promise to the faithful—that by means of the same easy expedient of calling his name, one might realize one’s wishes for wealth or for the birth of a male or female child—also assuredly contributed to his unparalleled success. The Pumen pin probably began to circulate as an independent text soon after Kumārajīva’s new translation of the Lotus Sūtra in 406 and, in this form, was popularized as the Guanyin Sūtra (Guanyin jing 觀音經).4 The text also quickly became the subject of visual depiction, as attested by the earliest surviving illustration of the Pumen pin in the relief carving of a fragmented stele recovered from the Wanfo si 萬佛寺 in Chengdu (Sichuan), dated 44 C.E.5 The popularity of the foreign bodhisattva continued to grow in medieval times, when Guanyin became the protagonist of an expanding corpus of indigenous sūtras, miracle stories,6 and visual works. During the sixth century C.E., while Indian artists were carving mural sculptures of Avalokiteśvara as savior from perils in the Western Indian religious sites of Ajantā, Kanherī, Ellorā, and Aurangābad, Chinese painters started to manufacture representations of the Guanyin chapter. In Dunhuang, among the 49 documented grottoes, no less than 8 mural paintings, ranging from the early seventh to the eleventh century, depict different themes from the Pumen pin.7 Illustrated handwritten copies of the Guanyin jing started to circulate at the end of the Tang dynasty. The didactic illustrated booklets of the sūtra, dating from the tenth century, that were discovered in the Dunhuang library cave were mentioned in chapter .8 Later on, the Pumen pin also became a subject for large-scale sculptures. The famous twelfth-century Water-Moon Guanyin (Shuiyue Guanyin 水月觀音) in cave 9 at the Pilu 毘盧 monastery site in Anyue 安岳 (Sichuan Province) is an example that can still be admired (fig. 5.). Sitting in the Potalaka paradise, Guanyin is here surrounded by vignettes of the various perils enumerated in the text.9 Considering both the impressive...

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