Avalokiteśvara and the Legend of Miao-Shan Author(S): Arthur Waley Source: Artibus Asiae, Vol

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Avalokiteśvara and the Legend of Miao-Shan Author(s): Arthur Waley Source: Artibus Asiae, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1925), pp. 130-132 Published by: Artibus Asiae Publishers Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3248015 Accessed: 08/06/2010 02:20

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http://www.jstor.org des Nashorns. Gleichviel ist die Uberlieferung noch einwandsfrei, wie die anderen Darstellungen als zweifelsfrei erscheinen lassen. Die Inschrift lautet: Phra: phlong song rt = der erhabene Feuer(-gott) mit (seinem Reittier) dem Rhinoceros. Die vorderindische Uberlieferung ist anders. Sie stellt als Agnis Reittier immer den Widder dar, der auch in seiner Standarte erscheint. Die alten Mythologien von Moor und Coleman beschreiben ihn als dreibeinig und siebenarmig. Aul3er einer solchen Abbildung bei Wilkins* ist mir keine Darstellung dieser Art bekannt geworden. Es ware wiinschenswert, wenn solche existieren sollten, diese zu publizieren, da gerade von Agni sehr wenig Darstellungen bekannt sind. Eine siidindische Miniatur im Besitze des Museums fur Volkerkunde in Berlin zeigt uns Agni dreikopfig mit zwei Beinen und zwei Armen. Die rechte Hand hilt eine Schlinge, die linke den Ziigel des Widders. Ziegenbalg** hin- gegen beschreibt ihn wieder als zweigesichtig, vierarmig und dreifiil3ig mit feuriger Krone, welch letzteres Attribut auch die siidindische Miniatur zeigt.

ARTHUR WALEY: AVALOKITESVARA AND THE LEGEND OF MIAO-SHAN

IN HER INTERESTINGARTICLE EINIGES ZUR BUDDHISTISCHENM-ADONNA*** Melanie Stiassny quotes the legend of Miao-shan as evidence that

* W. I. Wilkins, Hindu Mythology, vedic and puranic. Calcutta 1882, 8? p. 19. ** Barthol. Ziegenbalg, Genealogie der Malabarischen G6tter. Madras und Erlangen 1867. Hrsg. von Dr. W. Germann, p. 242. *** Cicerone XV. 22. 1 o 1. - t Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant Dec. 15, 1923. He speaks of <>.

130 true that the Nan-hai Kuan-yin Ch'iian Chuan (<) places the events of the story in the 3rd millenium B. C.* But this does not in any way prove that the story itself is early. The preface** to the apocryphal sutra Kuan-yin Chi-tu Pen-yu'an Chen Ching claims that the text of this sutra (which consists of the Miao-shan legend told in a long and rather tedious form) was written by the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara himself, then lay for thousands of years and was finally discovered by the pious Kuang-yeh Shan-jen who published it in the middle of the 17th century! This does not of course necessarily indicate that the legend was unknown before its incorporation in the apocryphal sutra; but proof is still required that it is not simply a pious invention of the 1 th century. Every element of the story (including plot, tone, incident etc.) is so characteristic of medieval Buddhist literature that I personally find it impossible to believe that it is, at the earliest, more than a few centuries older than the apocryphal sutra. Moreover the name of the heroine Miao-shan is frankly Buddhist. I write this note in the hope that someone with a greater knowledge of Buddhist literature than myself will investigate the question further and ascer- tain whether the legend can be traced back beyond the 17th century; also whether it is, as I rather suspect, modelled on one of the Jataka tales, of which Chinese Buddhist literature has so large a store. It was felt, I think, by the later Buddhists that Avalokitesvara ought to have her Jatakas just as Sakyamuni had his. But that such stories in any way assisted the transformation of Avalokitesvara's sex or indeed even preceded it, still remains to be proved. I have elsewhere*** suggested that the Tantric worship of Tara, the female emanation or Sakti of Avalokitesvara, may have prepared the way for the female Kuan-yin. No doubt, as Professor de Visser suggests, it was preciseley the Tantric Buddhists who most rigidly maintained the male sex of Avaloki- tesvara. But at Tun-huang (where popular Buddhism contained a relatively small * A version quoted by Eitel places them in the loth century B. C.; other versions, in the 6th century B. C. ** Dated 1666. The edition in the British Museum was printed in 1870. *** Introduction to the Study of Chinese painting, p. 95.

131 admixture of Tantric belief) we find a woodcut of Avalskitesvara bearing upon it a Tantric invocation to Tara. Except in the minds of worshippers technically traind in Tantric theory, this was likely to suggest: - . that Tara was another name for Avalokitesvara, 2. that Avalokitesvara was, like Tara, a lady. No doubt other influences, as yet unknown, favoured the sex-transformation of this Bodhisattva; but there is no reason at present to believe that the worship of a native Chinese Mother-goddess was one of them. We do not as yet even know whether the change took place in China or elsewhere.

OSVALD SIREN: QUELQUES OBSERVATIONS SUR LES IMITATIONS DES ANCIENNES SCULPTURES CHINOISES*

IL EXISTE ENCORE UNE SERIE DE GRANDES SCULPTURES SEMBLABLES A CELLES d6crites dans le numero precedent, representant des Bouddhas assis sur des trones de lotus. Les personnages vetus de tuniques flottantes laissant la poitrine decouverte, se detachent sur de grands nimbes ovales decores avec profusion de flammes et d'ornements floraux. Nous en reproduisons ici un specimen qui se trouve au musee de Detroit (Abb. Artibus Asiae I p. 64), mais si mes informations sont exactes, il en existe deux ou trois asseaa seblables a celui-ci dans des collections americaines et japonaises. La figure principale de cette sculpture est un Bouddha a la taille longue et 1ee- gante, drape dans un vetement qui tombe de l'epaule sur les bras, s'enroule autour des jambes et retombe sur le trone de lotus en plis assez mal ordonnes. Les lignes * Les petites stWlesbouddhiques de Paris,Philadelphie et Washingtonreproduites dans la premibre partie de mon article, ont aussi kt4 reproduites et discutdes plus h fond, dans mon ouvrage: Chinese Sculpture from the Vth to the XIVth Century p. 77-79, ou l'on trouve les observations de Mr. Pelliot sur l'inscription de la stble Peytel. II serait pr4matur4 de s'exprimer d4finitivement sur l'dpoque de l'ex4cution de ces stbles, aussi longtemps que l'4nigme dpigraphique de l'inscription, 4videmment contemporaine de l'ex6cution des steles, n'aura pas 6dt dclaircie. II faut en tout cas admettre que l'etude de cette inscription ne conduit pas a une datation antdrieure l'apoquea Ming.

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