Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Mahāyānasūtras – 94
Potency of Avalokiteśvara
The basic idea is the same in both the versions of the Kāraṇḍavyūha
– the exaltation of the marvellous redeemer Avalokiteśvara, “the
Lord looking down,” that is, he who surveys with infinite
compassion all the creatures. This interpretation is found in the text
itself (Burnouf, Introduction, p. 201 f.), but it is possible to explain
the name in other ways (La Vallée-Poussin, Encyclopaedia of
Religion and Ethics, II, p. 201 f.), Avalokiteśvara here appears as a
typical Bodhisattva but declines to enter into Buddhahood so long as
all [76] the creatures have not been emancipated. To bring salvation
to all the creatures, to succour all the sorrowing, to save all from
want, to exercise unbounded commiseration which does not recoil
from sin, and does not stop short at the gates of hell, this is the one
and the only obligation of the Avalokiteśvara. Words are placed in
the mouth of Avalokiteśvara to the effect that it is better for a
Bodhisattva to commit sins in the exercise of sympathy, to suffer in
hell rather than to disappoint a creature of the hopes centred by the
latter in him (Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, II, p. 257 f.). The
opening chapter of the Kāraṇḍavyūha portrays how he descends into
the fireful Avīci (hell) in order to set free the tormented from their
pain. No sooner does he enter it, than the scorching glow turns into
agreeable coolness; in place of the cauldrons in which millions of the
damned are boiling like vegetable, there appears a lovely Lotus
Pond. The seat of torture is transformed into a pleasance.
E. B. Cowell, Journal of Philology, vi, 1876, p. 222 ff., reprinted also
in Indian Antiquities, viii, 249 ff. L Scherman, The Vision Literature,
p. 62 ff. Cowell compares the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus and
derives the Indian from the Christian legend.