Guanyin

Summary

Guanyin 觀音, in full Guanshiyin 觀世音, "the one who perceives the sounds of the world", is the bodhisattva whom Indian Buddhists call Avalokiteśvara. A bodhisattva in Buddhism is a being who has reached awakening and remains in the world to save others. Avalokiteśvara entered China with the translated Buddhist scriptures, became there the most widely loved figure of mercy, and over the centuries came to be shown more and more as a woman.

The best-known account is chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra in Kumārajīva's Chinese translation of 406. The bodhisattva Akṣayamati rises and asks the Buddha why this bodhisattva is called "Perceiver of the World's Sounds". The Buddha answers: if countless beings in suffering hear of him and call his name with a single mind, he at once perceives their voices and frees them. Whoever enters a great fire calling his name is not burned; whoever is swept away by great waters reaches the shallows; when a black wind drives a ship to the land of demons, all are saved if one of them calls his name; when someone is about to be struck, the sticks and swords break to pieces; whoever is bound in fetters and chains, guilty or innocent, sees the bonds break; and merchants on a road of robbers are saved by calling his name together. A woman who wants a son or a daughter receives one.

Akṣayamati then asks how this bodhisattva moves through the world and teaches. The Buddha says: to those who are to be saved by a buddha's form he appears as a buddha; to those to be saved by the form of Brahmā he appears as Brahmā; and likewise as Śakra, that is Indra, as Maheśvara, that is Śiva, as a minor king, a wealthy man, an official, a monk or nun, a wife, a boy or a girl, a dragon. He appears to each in the form that person can understand, and so people call him "Giver of Fearlessness". Akṣayamati takes off his necklace and offers it; the bodhisattva at first declines, then accepts at the Buddha's word and divides it in two, half for the Buddha Śākyamuni and half for the stupa of the Buddha Prabhūtaratna.

The idea the account turns on is that rescue comes through the voice alone. The chapter asks the one in danger for no learning and no long devotion: it is enough to call the name, and the one called hears and looks at once. And this saviour keeps no single form: he takes the form of whoever he is speaking to, man or woman, child or king. Here his Chinese transformation began. The Indian bodhisattva became in China a merciful woman; from about the tenth century images in female form multiplied, and later he was said to have been born as Princess Miaoshan, the filial daughter whose story was carved on a stone at the Xiangshan temple in 1104.

We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this. In Chinese it means "the one who perceives sounds": 觀 guān, to look, and 音 yīn, sound. The project's Chinese essay reads it with Arabic ʿayn and ʿānā: ʿayn is the eye, the organ of sight and witness, present in guān by sense and in yīn by sound, and ʿānā is to suffer a thing and bear its hardship. On the essay's reading Guanyin is "the eye that suffers with", the eye that sees and feels. Lane adds, under the neighbouring root ʿ-n-w, that the ʿānī is the lowly and submissive, and hence the captive; and these are exactly the people the chapter lists: the suffering, those bound in fetters, those under the sword. On this reading the name joins the eye that looks and the captive who is looked upon.

Linguistic Root

In Sanskrit avalokita means looked at, or looking, from ava-lok, to look upon and observe; īśvara is lord or master; and svara is sound or voice. When Xuanzang, in the seventh century, found the Indian name meaning "the observing lord", he judged the old translation a mistake, since no "sound" appears in it, and wrote Guanzizai. Then in 1927 Mironov found, in Sanskrit fragments of the same chapter from Eastern Turkestan dated to the late fifth century, the name written Avalokitasvara five times: the "sound" was in the name Kumārajīva translated.

The essay reads the Chinese name, not the Indian one. The ʿ of ʿayn and ʿānā answers the syllable 音 yīn by sound: ʿayn is one of the throat letters that drop or weaken in other languages, and the y and n survive in the modern pronunciation. The point that needs explaining is that when the name was made 音 ended in m, ʔim in Middle Chinese and *qəm in the modern Old Chinese reconstruction, so the n of ʿayn meets only the modern sound, and 觀 guān enters the reading by its meaning. In Lane, ʿānāhu is to suffer a thing and endure its hardship, ʿaniya is to meet with toil, and the ʿānī is the submissive and lowly, hence the captive.

Key Mythic Narratives

The Lotus Sutra was translated into Chinese six times, and three translations survive. In the oldest, Dharmarakṣa's of 286, the chapter is the twenty-third, and the bodhisattva is called "Illuminator of the World's Sounds", saving from seven perils and freeing from lust, hatred and ignorance. In Kumārajīva's it is the twenty-fifth, and in the third translation the twenty-fourth. The verse section at the end of the chapter was not in Dharmarakṣa's or Kumārajīva's version; it was added to Kumārajīva's from the third translation.

These verses repeat the perils and add to them: if someone is pushed into a pit of fire and thinks of Guanyin's power, the pit becomes a pool; if someone drifts on the great sea among dragons and fish, the waves do not drown him.

Symbolic Reading

The Semitic-reading essay calls Guanyin "knowing compassion": an eye that sees, and a heart that carries another's pain. In the chapter itself looking and hearing join in one act, "he perceives their voices". Mercy here is attention before it is giving, and the saviour is known by never missing anyone's call. The many forms in the chapter explain what happened to him in China: a figure wide enough for everyone who calls, until in people's eyes he became a woman and a mother.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

In the chapter Guanyin appears in the forms of Brahmā, Indra and Śiva, the great gods of India themselves, to teach those who know them. This resembles in one respect Vishnu's descents in successive forms: a single being taking many forms for the world's sake. The difference is that Vishnu's forms are births in successive ages, in which he fights and restores order, while Guanyin's forms appear at once, to each listener according to his understanding.