Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara

Bìa trước
Columbia University Press, 22 thg 3, 2001 - 688 trang

By far one of the most important objects of worship in the Buddhist traditions, the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara is regarded as the embodiment of compassion. He has been widely revered throughout the Buddhist countries of Asia since the early centuries of the Common Era. While he was closely identified with the royalty in South and Southeast Asia, and the Tibetans continue to this day to view the Dalai Lamas as his incarnations, in China he became a she—Kuan-yin, the "Goddess of Mercy"—and has a very different history. The causes and processes of this metamorphosis have perplexed Buddhist scholars for centuries.

In this groundbreaking, comprehensive study, Chün-fang Yü discusses this dramatic transformation of the (male) Indian bodhisattva Avalokitesvara into the (female) Chinese Kuan-yin—from a relatively minor figure in the Buddha's retinue to a universal savior and one of the most popular deities in Chinese religion.

Focusing on the various media through which the feminine Kuan-yin became constructed and domesticated in China, Yü thoroughly examines Buddhist scriptures, miracle stories, pilgrimages, popular literature, and monastic and local gazetteers—as well as the changing iconography reflected in Kuan-yin's images and artistic representations—to determine the role this material played in this amazing transformation. The book eloquently depicts the domestication of Kuan-yin as a case study of the indigenization of Buddhism in China and illuminates the ways this beloved deity has affected the lives of all Chinese people down the ages.

 

Nội dung

1 Introduction
1
2 Scriptural Sources for the Cult of Kuanyin
31
3 Indigenous Chinese Scriptures and the Cult of Kuanyin
93
4 Miracle Tales and the Domestication of Kuanyin
151
5 Divine Monks and the Domestication of Kuanyin
195
6 Indigenous Iconographies and the Domestication of Kuanyin
223
7 The Ritual of Great Compassion Repentance and the Domestication of the Thousandhanded and Thousandeyed Kuanyin in the Sung
263
8 Princess Miaoshan and the Feminization of Kuanyin
293
10 Feminine Forms of Kuanyin in Late Imperial China
407
Kuanyin and Sectarian Religions in Late Imperial China
449
12 Conclusion
487
Appendix A Stele Text of the Life of the Great Compassionate One
495
Appendix B Chinese Women Pilgrims Songs Glorifying Kuanyin
505
Notes
511
Bibliography
555
Index and Glossary
595

Pilgrimage and the Creation of the Chinese Potalaka
353

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Thuật ngữ và cụm từ thông dụng

Giới thiệu về tác giả (2001)

Chün-fang Yü is professor and chair of the Department of Religion at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She is the author of The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis (Columbia) and coeditor of Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China.

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