1nCnVqgFI

.
DISEASED IMAGINATION.
5 II
Hence the ritual in the exoteric worship of this Deity was founded
on magic. The Mantras are all taken from special books kept secret
by the priests, and each is said to work a magical effect ; as the reciter
or reader, by simply chanting them, produces a secret causation which
results in immediate effects. Kwan-Shi-Yin is Avalokiteshvara, and
both are forms of the Seventh Universal Principle ;
while in its highest
metaphysical character this Deity is the synthetic aggregation of all
the Planetary Spirits, Dhj^an Chohans. He is the "Self-Manifested";
in short, the "Son of the Father." Crowned with seven dragons,
above his statue there appears the inscription Pu-tsi-k'iun-ling, "the
universal Saviour of all living beings."
Of course the name given in the archaic volume of the Stanzas is
quite different, but Kwan-Yin is a perfect equivalent. In a temple of
P'u-to, the sacred island of the Buddhists in China, Kwan-Shi-Yin is
represented floating on a black aquatic bird (Kalahamsa), and pouring
on the heads of mortals the elixir of life, which, as it flows, is transformed
into one of the chief Dhyani-Buddhas, the Regent of a star
called the "Star of Salvation." In his third transformation Kwan-Yin
is the informing Spirit or Genius of Water. In China the Dalai-Lama
is believed to be an incarnation of Kwan-Shi-Yin, who in his third
terrestrial appearance was a Bodhisattva, while the Teshu Lama is an
incarnation of AmitSbha Buddha, or Gautama.
It maj' be remarked en passant that a writer must indeed have a
diseased imagination to discover phallic worship everj^where, as do
McClatchey and Hargrave Jennings. The first discovers "the old
phallic gods, represented under two evident symbols, the Kheen or
Yang, which is the membrnm virile, and the Khw-an or Yin, the p2ide^idu7n
mulicbre."* Such a rendering seems the more strange as Kwan-
Shi-Yin (Avalokiteshvara) and Kwan-Yin, besides being now the
patron Deities of the Buddhist ascetics, the Yogis of Tibet, are the
Gods of chastity, and are, in their esoteric meaning, not even that
which is implied in the rendering of Mr. Rhys Davids' Bicddhism:
"The name Avalokiteshvara . . . means 'the Lord who looks
down from on high'."t Nor is Kwan-Shi-Yin the "Spirit of the
Buddhas present in the Church," but, literally interpreted, it means
"the Lord that is seen." and in one sense, "the Divine Self perceived
b3'' Self"—the human Self—that is, the Atman or Seventh Principle,
merged in
the Universal, perceived by, or the object of perception to,
• China Revealed, as quoted in Hargrave Jennings' Phallicism,^. 273. + p. 202.