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

34 Introduction
jātaka tale. 114 The little parrot is an emblem of filial piety: it is
captured when it is looking for its mother’s favorite food. When it
finally manages to escape, its mother has already died. It then
mourns its mother and provides her with a fitting funeral before becoming
Guanyin’s disciple.
The story then skips ahead to three years later, when Guanyin
returns to Mt. Putuo and appears to Shancai in the middle of the
ocean, standing on the head of a huge tortoise (ao). Shancai joins
her, walking across the waves. ‘‘To this very day, this picture remains
in the world’’ (p. 27a–b). Following this confirmation of the
sincerity of his faith, his parents are reborn in heaven. After the
snake has submitted itself to austerities for seven years, it has rid itself
of all its poison and created a pearl. It is now transformed into
the Dragon Girl and joins Guanyin, Shancai, and the filial parrot at
Mt. Putuo. 115 The text concludes with an eight-line poem in which
the members of the audience are once against urged to persist in
their devotions.
The Precious Scroll of Good-in-Talent and Dragon Girl tells its
pious tale efficiently and not without touches of humor. The Buffalo
Star, for instance, relates how he never wanted to descend to earth
but was pushed out of the Gate of Heaven by the bodhisattva Kṡitigarbha
(Dizang), who had taken pity on the toiling masses and had
vowed to the Buffalo Star that his eyes would fall out on the ground
if humans would not repay a favor with a favor. Because of his fall
from heaven, the buffalo had lost the teeth in his upper jaw, and because
of the bad treatment the buffalo subsequently suffered at the
hand of man, Kṡitigarbha’s eyes had indeed fallen to the ground,
where they turned into the snails that are trampled by the buffalo
when plowing the fields.
If we take The Precious Scroll of Good-in-Talent and Dragon Girl
first of all as the religious biography of Shancai, as seems to be suggested
by the text, the story reads very much like a minor mirror
image of The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain. This mirroring
even extends to the matter of names: Miaoshan’s mother is called
Baode; Chen Lian’s father is named Debao. But whereas Chen Debao
allows his son to pursue a religious career, Miaoshan’s father
is fiercely opposed to his daughter’s wish to become a nun. And
whereas Miaoshan is brought back from the White Sparrow Convent
in shackles, Shancai returns to his father’s home on his own
initiative. Miaoshan stubbornly frustrates all attempts to persuade