Two Precious Scroll Narratives of Guanyin and Her ... - Khamkoo

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Introduction 3 cerned with the conflicting demands of religious salvation and filial piety. Religious salvation requires the individual to break with all social bonds and obligations in order to achieve his or her personal liberation, while the demands of filial piety insist on the subordination of the child to the family because of all the grace and favors the parents bestow on a child by raising it. The Precious Scroll of Good-in-Talent and Dragon Girl, borrowing from popular lore and legend, pokes fun at the common tendency of people to forget the favors they have received and at the fact that their greatest desire is not for religious salvation, but rather for personal gain and satisfaction. But as The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain shows, the desire for religious salvation, which appears initially as utterly selfish and antisocial, proves in the end to be the most filial act of all, as it results not only in the salvation of a single individual, but also the salvation of her parents, when Princess Miaoshan donates her eyes and arms to rescue her father from a wasting disease. In presenting these translations of The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain and The Precious Scroll of Good-in-Talent and Dragon Girl, I hope to make a contribution to the study of both Chinese Buddhism and Chinese literature. Through my discussions in this Introduction, I also hope to point out some aspects in which these texts may be of interest to students of comparative studies. While The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain and The Precious Scroll of Good-in-Talent and Dragon Girl are clearly set in a Chinese world, and grapple with problems phrased in Chinese terms, some of the motifs underlying these narratives would appear to be far more widespread, if not universal. Avalokiteśvara and Guanyin Guanyin is only one of the several common translations of the Sanskrit name Avalokiteśvara. The precise meaning of the name Avalokiteśvara is not clear; most modern scholars suggest the name means roughly ‘‘the lord who looks down.’’ The early Chinese translators of Buddhist scriptures apparently based themselves on the alternative form Avalokatasvara (He who sees sounds), and accordingly translated the name as Guanyin (He who contemplates the sounds) or Guanshiyin (He who contemplates the sounds of the world). The famous seventh-century monk and translator Xuanzang (600–664) strongly argued that the correct translation should be
4 Introduction Guanzizai (The lord who contemplates), but despite his scholarly authority this rendering never displaced the earlier translation. 7 Very little is known about the early veneration of Avalokiteśvara in India before his cult was introduced into China. One theory holds that Avalokiteśvara started out as a protective deity of horses, a theory that would explain the existence of later images in which Avalokiteśvara is crowned with a horse head. 8 When Buddhism was introduced into China by way of Central Asia from the first century CE onward, it arrived largely in its Mahayana Buddhist form, which had come into being in northern India in the second and first centuries BCE. 9 Buddhism of earlier centuries may have focused on the historical Buddha Śākyamuni (sixth century BCE?) and his teaching of a method to liberate oneself from suffering by one’s own efforts. Buddhism accepted the ancient Indian worldview that every living being is subject to saṁsāra, the endless cycle of reincarnation and retribution. According to this belief, one’s life as a demon or a god, an animal or a human being, a man or a woman, on earth or in one of the many heavens and hells is determined by one’s deeds (karma) in an earlier existence. 10 Buddhism stressed that each and every existence, even a life as one of the gods, is marked by suffering. The cause of suffering is the attachment to the impermanent phenomenal world by our ‘‘ego’’ or self, which believes itself to be permanent but actually is as impermanent and empty as all other phenomena, as it is only a temporary bundle of elements (dharmas). Once the ephemerality of all phenomena is realized, one is freed from attachment, liberated from suffering, and enters into nirvana (extinction/annihilation), never again to be reborn. Those who followed the Buddha’s teaching (Dharma) and achieved this superior insight were called arhats. Early Buddhism taught that, if one was truly serious about achieving enlightenment, one had to cut off all social ties to one’s family by ‘‘leaving the household’’ and joining the saṅgha, the monastic community of monks and nuns (tradition held that the Buddha had only reluctantly agreed to the establishment of the order of nuns). Although the Buddha condemned extreme forms of ascetic behavior, monks and nuns were expected to relinquish all worldly possessions, adhere to a strict code of moral conduct and physical behavior, and engage in meditation and other religious exercises. Pious laymen and laywomen were encouraged to lead a moral life so as to achieve a better rebirth, in which they might join the mo-
Page 1 and 2: PERSONAL SALVATION and FILIAL PIETY
Page 4 and 5: CLASSICS IN EAST ASIAN BUDDHISM Per
Page 6: Kuroda Institute Classics in East A
Page 10: Acknowledgments My interest in the
Page 13: 2 Introduction twelfth century. As
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192 Notes to Pages 4-5 association
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194 Notes to Pages 8-10 Mountain an
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196 Notes to Pages 12-13 teenth and
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198 Notes to Pages 18-21 66. Ibid.,
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200 Notes to Pages 24-26 88. Cole 1
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Glossary ao 鰲 Baiyi Guanyin 白
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Glossary 219 Yao Shouzhong 姚守
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222 Bibliography ———. 1973. T
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224 Bibliography Karetzky, Patricia
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226 Bibliography Ahern and Hill Gat
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About the Author Wilt L. Idema (Ph.
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Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Bu
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Two Precious Scroll Narratives of Guanyin and Her ... - Khamkoo

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