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The Tantric Origins of the Horse King: Hayagrīva and the Chinese Horse Cult*

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The Tantric Origins of the Horse King: Hayagrīva and the Chinese Horse Cult* The Tantric Origins of the Horse King 147 Chapter 6 The Tantric Origins of the Horse King: Hayagrīva and the Chinese Horse Cult* Meir Shahar Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin) is among the most enigmatic of Buddhist deities— mysterious not because information on him is lacking, but rather because of its abundance. In the course of his illustrious career, the mercurial god has assumed so many identities that his own person is hard to know. From the mighty guardian of South Asian royal houses to the self-sacrificing Chinese princess Miaoshan, from the serene proclaimer of sacred scriptures to his liv- ing incarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara appears to be everywhere and nowhere: revealed in an astonishing diversity of forms, even as he transcends them all. In this respect the vexed question of his gender transformation (from mostly male in India and Tibet to largely female in China, Korea, and Japan) might be subsumed under the larger riddle of his person: The protean god is many different things at once, including man and woman.1 (On Avalokiteśvara as the protector of women in labor see Li Ling and Ma De (chapter 13)). This essay examines the Tantric manifestation of Avalokiteśvara as a Horse- Headed divinity. The equine god was revealed to his Chinese devotees in esoteric Buddhist scriptures that were translated from the Sanskrit during the Tang Period (618–907). The Tantric manuals featured a wealth of information on the divine steed, which was referred to as Hayagrīva. I argue that the mythol- ogy and iconography of the Horse-Headed Bodhisattva have had a decisive impact upon the Chinese pantheon of divinities. Hayagrīva is the ultimate ancestor of the Horse King (Mawang) whose cult was widespread in Daoist circles and in the popular religion all through the late-imperial period. In this respect the equine Avalokiteśvara illustrates the long-term impact of Tantric Buddhism upon the Chinese imagination of divinity. I begin with the Hayagrīva figure that is described in Chinese (and in Japanese) esoteric scriptures. The sources I examine have been surveyed as early as 1935 in Robert van Gulik’s pioneering study (1935), and my analysis of * The research for this essay was supported by an Israel Science Foundation Grant no. 188/11. 1 Avalokiteśvara has been the subject of vast scholarship. On his/her East Asian image and cult see especially Yü Chün-Fang 2001, Iyanaga Nobumi 2002, Dudbridge 2004 and Stein 1986. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/9789004340503_008 148 Shahar them is indebted to Iyanaga Nobumi, who has pointed out the connection between the Buddhist equine divinity and the Hindu lore of the underwater, fire-emanating, mare (Iyanaga Nobumi 2002, 497–550).2 I then turn from the Indian origins of the Tantric god to his latter-day Chinese incarnation, of which scholars have been unaware. The bulk of the paper is dedicated to the links that bind the Chinese Horse King to the Tantric Horse-Headed Avalokiteśvara, demonstrating the significant role of esoteric Buddhism in shaping the Chinese pantheon of divinities. Hayagrīva in Esoteric Buddhist Literature No fewer than 88 texts are dedicated to Avalokiteśvara in the Tantric section of the Chinese canon.3 Attesting the prominence of the god in esoteric Bud- dhist ritual, they portray an astonishing array of his divine manifestations. The Tantric manuals describe in writing, and render in drawing, such diverse epiph- anies of the Bodhisattva as the Eleven-Faced (Ekadāśa-mukha) Avalokiteśvara, (whose compassionate light shines in all directions: the eight points of the compass plus the zenith, the nadir, and the center); the Bodhisattva of the Unerring Noose (Amogha-pāśa); the Avalokiteśvara of a Thousand Hands and—in the palms of the hands—a Thousand Eyes; the Blue-Necked (Nīla- kaṇṭha) Avalokiteśvara (who was doubtless inspired by the Blue-Necked Śiva); and, most striking of all, the Horse-Headed Bodhisattva.4 The equine deity is called Hayagrīva Avalokiteśvara (literally: Horse-Necked Avalokiteśvara), which has been rendered into Chinese as Matou Guanyin 馬頭觀音 (Horse-Headed Guanyin). The name has been variously transliter- ated as Heyegelifu 賀野紇哩縛, Ayejielipo 阿耶揭唎婆, Heyejielipo 何耶揭 唎婆 and so on. The Tantric scriptures dedicated to him generally allude to the Horse-Headed Avalokiteśvara as a vidyārāja (meaning “king of magical-knowl- edge” or, more specifically, “king of spells”). The title designates a class of ferocious Tantric guardian divinities, (of whom the most famous in contempo- rary East Asia is Acala Vidyārāja (Japanese: Fudō myōō)). The Sanskrit vidyārāja has been translated into Chinese as mingwang 明王 (king illuminated [by mag- ical-knowledge]). Thus, the protagonist of this essay has been known in China 2 On the Horse-Headed Avalokiteśvara see also “Batōkannon,” in Hōbōgirin (Demiéville, P. et al. 1929, 2:58–61). 3 They are grouped together in volume 20 of the Taishō edition. 4 On the Tantric Avalokiteśvara see Strickmann 1996, 127–163. .
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