English
As the Paradise of Amitabha is the desire of the great body of Buddhists in China and Japan, so Kwan Yin is worshipped as the " Saviour of men," able to remove the obstacles which prevent them from attaining that happy condition. This cultus is a very singular one. We naturally inquire whence they derived their ideal of such a Being as Kwan-yin — a Being who has declared his purpose, under the most solemn oath, to manifest himself to every creature in the universe, in order to deliver all men from the conse- quences of sin. If written in full, the Chinese title of this Budhisatwa would be " Kwan-shai-yin," a title translated by Sir J. Davis " she who hears the ci-ies of men"; whilst MM. Klap- roth and Julien consider it as a mistaken version of the Sanscrit original " Avalokiteshwara." Without doubt the original appellation of the Bodhisatwa was Avalokiteshwara; but the theory that " iswara" was confounded with " svara" by the pandits who translated the Sanscrit into Chinese is, I think, an improbable one. In the first place, it is very unlikely that the priests em- ployed to translate the original texts into Chinese could have committed so grave an error as to confound these two dissimilar words. In the second place, as evidence that they did not, we have a correct translation of the expression ^^isvara" in the same sentence -^ in the first instance it is rendered "Kwan-yin," in the second "tseu-tsai," i.e., the "self- existent" (isvara). But thirdly, in the "Kwan-yin" section of the Saddharma Pundarika we find a correct version of Maheswara^ from the ^ Introduction to the Liturgy of Kwan-yin. 384 A CATENA OF BUDDHIST Sanscrit Maha iswara ; it is veiy unlikely, therefore, that the translators should have in one case faithfully rendered the original into its Chinese equivalent, and in the other case have mistaken a similarly compounded word for a totally different expression. But we obtain further evidence on the question by turn- ing to the heading of the twenty-fourth chapter of the Lotus of the Good Law. This heading, in the version of Bui-nouf, is " le recit parfaitement heureux." In the Chinese version it is simply " The recital of Kwan-shai-yin Bodhi- satwa." The two phrases are sufficiently unlike. But Bur- nouf, in a note on this chapter (p. 428), informs us that he had confused "^ sarmantamukha" in his Sanscrit text with " sarmantasukha.''^ The latter expression would signify just as much as " parfaitement heureux,^' whilst the foi"mer is simply a counterpart of the Chinese " Kwan-shai-yin," i. e., " the universally manifested voice. "^ It seems evident from this that the expression "Kwan-shai-yin" is but a ver- sion of the Sanscrit " Sarmantamukha." Similar evidence may be gathered from the following ^ Burnouf, it is true, renders " sarmantamukha" by " he whose face looks every way"; but it would seem that the translators of the phrase ' into Chinese preferred to render " mukha'' by " voice," t. e., " that which proceeds from the mouth," having perhaps in their mind the arguments of the Mimansa respecting the eternal manifestation of "sound" or "the word'' (sabda). Vide Muir's Sans. Texts, iii, 52 ss. The use of "mukha" for " voice" is borne out by such passages as the following : — " Tripada chaiva gayatrl vijileyam brahmano mukhara." " The gayatri of three lines is to be regarded as the mouth of Brahma." Again, " from his first mouth (prathamad mukhat) Brahma formed the gai/utraJ'' " Once the Vedas sprang from the four-faced (chaturmukhat) Creator ; from his eastern and other mouths (purA-adibhir mukaih) the Vedas called Ilik, Yaju.sh, etc." (Vide JNluir's /S'ansc. Texts, iii, p. 6 ss.) From these quotations Ave may gather that "mukha," the mouth, may be fairly translated by "that wliich proceeds from the mouth," or "the mani- fested voice." [Viz., of Scripture. The whole (piestion of the eternity of this " voice" or " word" is discussed in the work above quoted. Con- sult also the seventh and eighth caps, of Book vii, De civitate Dei, for a singular agreement of the "Janus quadrifrons" (as (h'liotiiiy •■ the world") with "sarmantamuklm."] SCRIPTURES FROM THR CHINESE. 385 considevations. (1 .) The term " Vach" (voice) is sometiracs used as an equivalent of Kwan-yin, as e. r/r., in the LUurgij of Kwan-yin with the thousand hands and eyes, fig, 13. (2.) The Archa3ological Surveyor of India, in his account of "Buddha Gaya/' states that ''there are two ruined temples to the east of the Great Temple, one called Tara- Deva, the other Vagiswari-Devi. The latter contains a seated male figure (although the title Devt is applied to it ; but this agrees with the confused account as to the sex of Kwan-yin in China), holding a Lotus in his left hand and a sword uplifted in his right, with a Buddhist Tope or solid tower on each side of him.-" But Tara-Deva and Kwan-yin are to this day conjoined in the Chinese Pantheon — the one, in fact, denoting the Divinity of Speech, the other (as it would seem) the material on which speech was written, Tala or Talavriksha, the leaf of the Palmyra palm (the " ola leaf" of Ceylon) ; and Kwan-yin (Padmapaui) is still figured as bearing a Lotus in one hand (to signify his self-existence) and a sword in the other (to signify his vow to save the world) in the Chinese liturgical works. But (3.) if any further proof were necessary, we might refer to the state- ment of Hodgson [Collected Essays, p. 68), '' that one of the intercommunicable titles of Padmapani {i. c., the Lotus- bearer or Kwan-yin) is Vachishwara, i. e., the Voice-Deity." On the whole, it would seem that the worship of Kwan- yin was first introduced into the Buddhist devotion under the form of Avalokiteshwara," or the "manifested Divinity," at the time when the traditional Scriptures were reduced to writing. The discovery and first use of written language was an event, however insignificant it may seem to us, of the greatest importance to those concerned, and an occasion for the utmost reverence in the eyes of the people. And it was consecrated in Buddhist history by the introduction of a Divinity into the Canon, whose title was significant of the discovery. We are told that the traditional Scriptures were first i-educed to writing in Ceylon about 450 years after the Nirvana of Buddha; the account runs thus: — -"After the (' c 386 A CATENA OF BUDDHIST Nirvana of Buddha, for the space of 450 years, the text and commentaries and all the works of the Tathagata were pre- served and transmitted by wise priests, orally (mukha- pathena). But having seen the evils attendant upon this mode of transmission, 550 Rahats, of great authority, in the cave called Aloka, in the province of Malaya, in Lanka, under the guardianship of the chief of that province, caused the (sacred) books to be written/'^ It was in consequence of this circumstance that Kwan-yin (samanta-mukha) was canonised as a Bodhisatwa, having supplanted the mukha- pathena (spoken- words). If we might conjecture further, it would seem as if the Potaloka- of the Malayagiri range (the Maleee montes of Pliny and Ptolemy), which is constantly represented as the favourite resort of Avalokiteshwara, were but a compound of Budhi and Aloka, denoting the fact that it was in this cave of Aloka that the great translation of the books was accomplished. At least there are corroborative circum- stances to render it probable. (1.) There was a chapel called " Bodhi'^ erected close to the Sangharama called " Abhayagiri,^' on the mount called Mahintala, near Anura- dhapura.^ Now the Sangharama " Abhayagiri^^ was built by the monarch Welagambahu, who brought together the five hundred priests who reduced the tenets of Buddhism to writing on this very spot ; and forty li {i. e., about eight miles) to the east of this Abhaya Vihara is the chapel called Bodlii : the two names, therefore, seem to be connected in the account, and the compound "Potaloka" is probably the result of the connection. But (2.) one of the most frequent epithets of Kwan-yin or Avalokiteshwara is " AbhayaiTidada," " he who removes fear"; the relation of this epithet with the Abhaya Mountain, where all farther altercation as to the letter of ' Spence Hardy, Legends, etc., p. 192. ^ This word is rendered " Potaraka" by Burnouf, and " Potalaka" by Julien ; but it may be equally well restored from the Chinese as 1 have done in the text. Vide Julien, Melhode, 1051. ' Vide Buddhist Pilgrims, pp. 161, 158.