Last Goddess for the
13 Goddesses in 13 Weeks Challenge!
I have enjoyed very much as I hope have my fellow participants! Thank you all!
Maybe I'll host a new challenge the next Fall.
Chinese Goddess: Quan Yin
"One of the deities most frequently seen on altars in
China's temples is Quan Yin (also spelled Kwan Yin, Kuanyin; in pinyin,
Guanyin). In Sanskrit, her name is
Padma-pâni, or 'Born of the Lotus'. In China she has many names and is also known as 'great mercy, great pity; salvation from misery, salvation
from woe; self-existent; thousand arms and thousand eyes,' etc. In addition she is often referred to as the Goddess of the
Southern Sea -- or Indian Archipelago -- and has been compared to the Virgin Mary. She is one of the
San Ta Shih,
or the Three Great Beings, renowned for their power over the animal kingdom or the forces of nature. These three
Bodhisattvas or
P'u Sa as they are know in China, are namely Manjusri (Skt.) or Wên Shu, Samantabhadra or
P'u Hsien, and Avalokitesvara or Quan Yin.
She is goddess of fecundity as well as of mercy.
Worshipped especially by women, this goddess comforts the troubled, the sick, the lost, the senile and the unfortunate. She cares for souls in the underworld, and is invoked during post-burial rituals to free the soul of the
deceased from the torments of purgatory. According to one ancient legend her name was Miao Shan, and she was the
daughter of an Indian Prince. Youthful and serene,
she chose to follow a path of self-sacrifice and virtue, and became a
pious follower of Buddha, herself attaining the right to budddhahood but
remaining on earth to help mankind.
In order to convert her
blind father, she visited him transfigured as a stranger, and informed
him that were he to swallow an eyeball of one of his
children, his sight would be restored. His children would not consent
to the necessary sacrifice, whereupon the future
goddess created an eye which her parent swallowed and he regained his
sight. She then persuaded her father to join the
Buddhist priesthood by pointing out the folly and vanity of a world in
which children would not even sacrifice an eye for
the sake of a parent."
Now show me yours!
