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

Notes to Pages 156–163 213
43. The phrase ‘‘extraordinary excellence’’ (qite) is used to characterize
the the glorified body of Amitābha perceived in the course of meditative
visualization.
44. Guanyin here lists the various Daoist-inspired spiritual, physical, and
sexual techniques associated, rightly or wrongly, with the sects and new
religions of Ming and Qing China. She also criticizes their exclusive social
organization.
45. Ratnagarbha is the buddha who, many eons ago, announced his future
buddhahood to the later Gautama Siddhartha.
46. Stories that supposedly took place in the final decades of the Tang dynasty
first link Guanyin to Mt. Putuo, a little island off the Chinese coast near
Ningbo, which was named after Potalaka, the mountain abode of Guanyin in
the Garland Sutra. ‘‘Manifest Dew’’ looks like the title of a reign-period, but no
reign-period of this name is known from the Tang dynasty.
47. The basic meaning of mahāsattva is ‘‘a great man,’’ and as such is often
used as designation of a bodhisattva or buddha. In popular religious texts the
term often is a designation of Guanyin.
Chapter 3: The Precious Scroll of Good-in-Talent and Dragon Girl
1. This line is a rephrasing of a line from the Book of Odes, III, iii, II, 7,
‘‘Yi.’’ See James Legge, trans., The Chinese Classics, vol. 4: The She King or the
Book of Poetry (repr. Taipei: Wenshizhe chubanshe, 1971), p. 515: ‘‘You ought
to be equally free from shame before the light which shines in.’’
2. The mountain here refers to Mt. Putuo, named after Mt. Potalaka, home
of Guanyin in the Flower Garland Sutra.
3. The Buddha is said to employ expedient means (fangbian; Skt. upāyakauśalya)
in teaching his disciples according to their capacities for enlightenment.
From there, the expression has obtained the more general meaning of
compassionate assistance.
4. Jinzha was the oldest son of general Li Jing, the guardian of the gate
of heaven. The best known of his offspring was his youngest son, Nezha. The
latter’s epic battles with his father are detailed in the hundred-chapter novel
Creation of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi) of the early seventeenth century. In the
present text, Jinzha would appear to have taken over the role of Weituo, a fierce
martial protector of Buddhism, who is often depicted accompanying Guanyin in
full martial gear.
5. Jiedi-gods are deities who protect Buddhism.
6. The actual word used here in the original is ‘‘Buddha,’’ not ‘‘bodhisattva.’’
In popular Buddhism, the distinction between the two terms tends to blur.
7. The speaker here is the court astrologer or diviner. Years, months, days,
and hours are counted by assigning them a two-character combination from the
list of sixty two-character combinations that are formed by combining the ten
single characters constituting the ‘‘heavenly stems’’ and the twelve single characters
constituting the ‘‘earthly branches.’’ On the basis of the eight characters of
birth, a skilled diviner can predict the future of a child. Penglai and Yingzhou
are floating islands in the Eastern Ocean that are inhabited by immortal beings.