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觀音：菩薩中國化的演變
觀音菩薩是佛教中慈悲的化身，在印度、東南亞與西藏，亦是象徵神聖王權的男性神祇，然而在中國，「他」卻變成了「她」，成為循聲救苦的「慈悲女神」，並擁有截然不同的歷史與身世，深刻地影響了國人的生活與信仰。
于君方教授投注十多年的心血，以結合文化、藝術、社會、歷史等跨學科領域的創新研究方法，探討觀音經歷此戲劇性演變的原因與過程。除了佛經之外，本書將感應錄、朝聖故事、寺志與山志、民間文學、田野調查，以及反映觀音形象變化的藝術造型等全面納入討論範圍，是深入研究觀音信仰的突破性著作。
本書特色
1.海內外全面而深入研究觀音的重要著作。
2.結合文獻學、歷史學、田野調查，進行社會，文化，藝術，歷史的跨學科領域研究，研究方法創新，具有突破性。
3.內含五十四幅來自世界各地收藏史料之珍貴照片。
于君方教授投注十多年的心血，以結合文化、藝術、社會、歷史等跨學科領域的創新研究方法，探討觀音經歷此戲劇性演變的原因與過程。除了佛經之外，本書將感應錄、朝聖故事、寺志與山志、民間文學、田野調查，以及反映觀音形象變化的藝術造型等全面納入討論範圍，是深入研究觀音信仰的突破性著作。
本書特色
1.海內外全面而深入研究觀音的重要著作。
2.結合文獻學、歷史學、田野調查，進行社會，文化，藝術，歷史的跨學科領域研究，研究方法創新，具有突破性。
3.內含五十四幅來自世界各地收藏史料之珍貴照片。
640 pages, Paperback
First published October 6, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 10, 2016
The book Kuan-Yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara by Chun-Fang Yu is easily one of the best books I've read in quite some time. The amount of research that has gone into this book is truly staggering. Yu takes as her sources sutras, both from Indian and Indigenous to China, miracle tales, iconography, precious scrolls, rituals and writings of monks and lay people spanning almost 2000 years. She also looks at Western, Chinese and Japanese scholarship. In addition to written documents, art work and iconography Yu also did extensive fieldwork in China about practices that exist today. By including how Kuan Yin is worshiped today and the effect the current religious beliefs have on her worshipers today really adds to the book. The book starts with Yu's own miracle tale about her grandmother who was a devotee of Kuan Yin who saved her life as a child by warning her and her mother not to get on a boat that ended up sinking. While a very academic text there is a definite personal level to the story that is being told. Yu's writing is clear and succinct and very easy to follow. She asks questions, explains what she is trying to uncover and summarizes each chapter succinctly.
More than simply looking at the change Kuan Yin underwent in China Yu also looks at the different course Buddhism took. How local beliefs affected it and changed it, what was incorporated, and how these changes were viewed. The book begins by looking at the history of Avalokitesvara in Sutras that were brought over from India and how these scriptures were received. Yu then looks at indigenous sutras, most of which were never included as Buddhist cannon, but were very popular. These scriptures were frequently distributed by monks and contained tales of the miracles that occurred when people recited them. One of my favorite promises from reciting the sutras was if you were a woman who wished to be reborn as a man you could recite the sutra a certain number of times and when you died you would be transported to paradise where you would be surrounded by dancing girls.
Yu, who admitted she knew very little about the history of art when she started her research, was able to combine the visual representations of Kuan Yin with their textual counterparts and beliefs. By doing this it becomes clear how and where the changes Kuan Yin went through took place, and patterns are developed that can show the progression that has been made.
One thing I found surprising was the rituals for confessing sin and repentance, not something I normally associate with Buddhism. It seems like earlier interests in the sutras were more practical, safety in this world or the next, with instant benefits simply by calling on the Buddha. However these rituals became increasingly more popular, and today are done frequently in temples.
Yu traces the different forms of Kuan Yin popular in China, two monks that were later said to have been incarnations of Kuan Yin, the water moon Kuan Yin, the white robed Kuan Yin, and the thousand armed Kuan Yin. The last took on the persona of Princess Miao Shan the legend of Miao Shan was one of the most interesting chapters in the book. In addressing the story Yu looked at the White Lotus teachings of lay Buddhism, she mentioned a book which I'm going to have to track down about the history of White Lotus teachings in China, their origins in lay Buddhism, how they were seen by the government and their later involvement in different rebellions. She addressed marriage resistance, particularly looking at how this type of resistance to marriage was common in the Taoist writings about saintly women, rather than coming from either the Buddhist or Confucian traditions. Miao Shan also visited the 10 hells to free those suffering there. As opposed to Mu-lien who was merely trying to free his mother and accidentally freed souls from hell, Miao Shan purposefully freed souls and eased the torments of those suffering there. Lastly the chapter looked at the practice of Ke-Ku (slicing off flesh from arms, thighs or livers to serve as medicine for dying or ill parents). This part looked at the history of self immolation and bodily sacrifice by Buddhist monks, and was more than a little gross! Yu made the argument that in order for Kuan Yin to become a true Chinese deity then she needed a mortal embodiment to become human before she was able to become a god. After the legend of Miao Shan became popular festivals were now held on her birthday for Kuan Yin.
The next chapter addressed pilgrimage sites. While not so interesting a chapter. It was interesting to contrast pilgrimages today with those made during the Ming dynasty. Yu also managed to portray well the development of different pilgrimage sites, how this influenced different legends and ideas about Kuan Yin. In this case the beliefs in Kuan Yin of the south Seas. Yu also illustrated the money to be made in the pilgrimage business.
Yu then looked at the feminine forms of Kuan Yin. She challenged the notion that Kuan Yin was a repackaging of an existing Chinese goddess. She argued despite the popularity of the Queen Mother of the West in Taoism, there was little evidence to show a practicing cult for her. It was not shown how or where she was worshiped by the people. Something I felt had been missing from the book I just read about her, but apparently it's just not know. She pointed out how the major deities in China were all male, set up in a male bureaucracy and had no real place for female deities. She argued that this lack of a strong female goddess presented a void that Kuan Yin was able to fill. The timing of Kuan Yin's transformation, being the Song, was shown to be a time where women faced greater persecution by men, and had smaller outlets for expression. She also made the interesting argument that a powerful female Goddess will not necessarily lead to greater equality among women, which was an interesting idea I had not considered before but made sense. This chapter contained a great deal of interesting ideas about how religion affects women and gave me lots of food for thought.
Yu then looks at the development of fish basket Kuan Yin, and the wife of Mr. Ma. She gives several different versions of the story, and shows how they develop. She also addresses the idea of sexuality and the Goddess, how the wife of Mr. Ma can be seen as a tease, and contrasts this with a much less popular story of the Goddess who gave out sexual favors to any man who wanted them freely, and the men never felt desire again. She linked this idea with the Buddhist monks who gave of their bodies to save others.
Lastly Yu looked at the development of the Venerable Mother Kuan Yin and the way she was incorporated into lots of different sectarian religions at the end of the imperial era.
There was so much in this book! The author covered so much and did it in such an interesting and informative manner. By making her work an interdisciplinary study she was really able to give a good glimpse of every aspect of the Goddess, and Bodhivista. How not only Kuan Yin changed in China, but also how Buddhism changed. This was an excellent book on religious history but also social and cultural history as well. I just can't seem to say enough nice things about it
More than simply looking at the change Kuan Yin underwent in China Yu also looks at the different course Buddhism took. How local beliefs affected it and changed it, what was incorporated, and how these changes were viewed. The book begins by looking at the history of Avalokitesvara in Sutras that were brought over from India and how these scriptures were received. Yu then looks at indigenous sutras, most of which were never included as Buddhist cannon, but were very popular. These scriptures were frequently distributed by monks and contained tales of the miracles that occurred when people recited them. One of my favorite promises from reciting the sutras was if you were a woman who wished to be reborn as a man you could recite the sutra a certain number of times and when you died you would be transported to paradise where you would be surrounded by dancing girls.
Yu, who admitted she knew very little about the history of art when she started her research, was able to combine the visual representations of Kuan Yin with their textual counterparts and beliefs. By doing this it becomes clear how and where the changes Kuan Yin went through took place, and patterns are developed that can show the progression that has been made.
One thing I found surprising was the rituals for confessing sin and repentance, not something I normally associate with Buddhism. It seems like earlier interests in the sutras were more practical, safety in this world or the next, with instant benefits simply by calling on the Buddha. However these rituals became increasingly more popular, and today are done frequently in temples.
Yu traces the different forms of Kuan Yin popular in China, two monks that were later said to have been incarnations of Kuan Yin, the water moon Kuan Yin, the white robed Kuan Yin, and the thousand armed Kuan Yin. The last took on the persona of Princess Miao Shan the legend of Miao Shan was one of the most interesting chapters in the book. In addressing the story Yu looked at the White Lotus teachings of lay Buddhism, she mentioned a book which I'm going to have to track down about the history of White Lotus teachings in China, their origins in lay Buddhism, how they were seen by the government and their later involvement in different rebellions. She addressed marriage resistance, particularly looking at how this type of resistance to marriage was common in the Taoist writings about saintly women, rather than coming from either the Buddhist or Confucian traditions. Miao Shan also visited the 10 hells to free those suffering there. As opposed to Mu-lien who was merely trying to free his mother and accidentally freed souls from hell, Miao Shan purposefully freed souls and eased the torments of those suffering there. Lastly the chapter looked at the practice of Ke-Ku (slicing off flesh from arms, thighs or livers to serve as medicine for dying or ill parents). This part looked at the history of self immolation and bodily sacrifice by Buddhist monks, and was more than a little gross! Yu made the argument that in order for Kuan Yin to become a true Chinese deity then she needed a mortal embodiment to become human before she was able to become a god. After the legend of Miao Shan became popular festivals were now held on her birthday for Kuan Yin.
The next chapter addressed pilgrimage sites. While not so interesting a chapter. It was interesting to contrast pilgrimages today with those made during the Ming dynasty. Yu also managed to portray well the development of different pilgrimage sites, how this influenced different legends and ideas about Kuan Yin. In this case the beliefs in Kuan Yin of the south Seas. Yu also illustrated the money to be made in the pilgrimage business.
Yu then looked at the feminine forms of Kuan Yin. She challenged the notion that Kuan Yin was a repackaging of an existing Chinese goddess. She argued despite the popularity of the Queen Mother of the West in Taoism, there was little evidence to show a practicing cult for her. It was not shown how or where she was worshiped by the people. Something I felt had been missing from the book I just read about her, but apparently it's just not know. She pointed out how the major deities in China were all male, set up in a male bureaucracy and had no real place for female deities. She argued that this lack of a strong female goddess presented a void that Kuan Yin was able to fill. The timing of Kuan Yin's transformation, being the Song, was shown to be a time where women faced greater persecution by men, and had smaller outlets for expression. She also made the interesting argument that a powerful female Goddess will not necessarily lead to greater equality among women, which was an interesting idea I had not considered before but made sense. This chapter contained a great deal of interesting ideas about how religion affects women and gave me lots of food for thought.
Yu then looks at the development of fish basket Kuan Yin, and the wife of Mr. Ma. She gives several different versions of the story, and shows how they develop. She also addresses the idea of sexuality and the Goddess, how the wife of Mr. Ma can be seen as a tease, and contrasts this with a much less popular story of the Goddess who gave out sexual favors to any man who wanted them freely, and the men never felt desire again. She linked this idea with the Buddhist monks who gave of their bodies to save others.
Lastly Yu looked at the development of the Venerable Mother Kuan Yin and the way she was incorporated into lots of different sectarian religions at the end of the imperial era.
There was so much in this book! The author covered so much and did it in such an interesting and informative manner. By making her work an interdisciplinary study she was really able to give a good glimpse of every aspect of the Goddess, and Bodhivista. How not only Kuan Yin changed in China, but also how Buddhism changed. This was an excellent book on religious history but also social and cultural history as well. I just can't seem to say enough nice things about it
August 30, 2011
An encyclopedia of the Chinese Guanyin, who comes to us today not just as instructor, savior, and wonder-worker, but through every diverse form of media. Guanyin comes to her audiences in fragments that do not necessarily come together as one coherent whole; and any one of these chapters could be the basis of an individual book. What we are presented with is a genuine surfeit of surfaces, of appearances. Yü deftly threads them all together, but there are so many nodes and connections that it can be very easy to get lost.
One thing I love about this study is how it localizes and temporalizes every incarnation of Guanyin, and follows the movement of the cult or the belief through movement of the media (a tale, a sighting, a statue, a painting, a scripture, a stele).
I also like how it builds on the contemporary scholarship in Chinese religion of the time, and what follows the colon will be a series of buzzwords: pilgrimage, esotericism, feminism, lay-monastic relations, apocrypha, empire, the aesthetics of Sinification.
The chapters seem to break into ~500 year fragments: chapters 2-5 from the fall of the Han to the fall of the Tang; chapters 6-8 from Five Dynasties through the Song; chapters 9-11 the early modern/late imperial period. But even the earlier chapters sometimes end up in the twentieth century.
As to the question of why Guanyin increasingly became portrayed as female in the Chinese cultural sphere, Yü provides a few global answers and a slew of local answers. In the global sense (pan-China), there already existed a few goddesses (e.g., Xiwangmu, Nüwa, the Daoists' feminine divine principle) whose mythologies and powers onto which Guanyin could be grafted; but the fact that royal mythologies had already been significantly developed kept Avalokiteśvara from taking that role (as he did in other Asian cultural regions where the Buddhism Cultural Package was imported), and the overdetermined, overwhelming patriarchy at all levels of society seems to have generated great female or feminized "needs" for female or feminized audiences (this seems to be the gist of much of Chapter 10).
Various local feminine Chinese incarnations of Guanyin can be read back into South Asian scriptural precedent. White-Robed Guanyin and Princess Miaoshan as virgin, filial daughter can be found in nuce in certain avadanas; Fishbasket Guanyin as prostitute a descendant of the bodhisattva who has mastered skillful means in certain MY scriptures; Venerable Mother Guanyin gives sons, just like the Avalokiteśvara of the Lotus promised. Despite scriptural precedents, however, it is the fact that Guanyin appears in these guises at Xiangshan, Upper Tianzhu Monastery, or Mt. Potalaka Island, that makes her a real presence.
One thing I love about this study is how it localizes and temporalizes every incarnation of Guanyin, and follows the movement of the cult or the belief through movement of the media (a tale, a sighting, a statue, a painting, a scripture, a stele).
I also like how it builds on the contemporary scholarship in Chinese religion of the time, and what follows the colon will be a series of buzzwords: pilgrimage, esotericism, feminism, lay-monastic relations, apocrypha, empire, the aesthetics of Sinification.
The chapters seem to break into ~500 year fragments: chapters 2-5 from the fall of the Han to the fall of the Tang; chapters 6-8 from Five Dynasties through the Song; chapters 9-11 the early modern/late imperial period. But even the earlier chapters sometimes end up in the twentieth century.
As to the question of why Guanyin increasingly became portrayed as female in the Chinese cultural sphere, Yü provides a few global answers and a slew of local answers. In the global sense (pan-China), there already existed a few goddesses (e.g., Xiwangmu, Nüwa, the Daoists' feminine divine principle) whose mythologies and powers onto which Guanyin could be grafted; but the fact that royal mythologies had already been significantly developed kept Avalokiteśvara from taking that role (as he did in other Asian cultural regions where the Buddhism Cultural Package was imported), and the overdetermined, overwhelming patriarchy at all levels of society seems to have generated great female or feminized "needs" for female or feminized audiences (this seems to be the gist of much of Chapter 10).
Various local feminine Chinese incarnations of Guanyin can be read back into South Asian scriptural precedent. White-Robed Guanyin and Princess Miaoshan as virgin, filial daughter can be found in nuce in certain avadanas; Fishbasket Guanyin as prostitute a descendant of the bodhisattva who has mastered skillful means in certain MY scriptures; Venerable Mother Guanyin gives sons, just like the Avalokiteśvara of the Lotus promised. Despite scriptural precedents, however, it is the fact that Guanyin appears in these guises at Xiangshan, Upper Tianzhu Monastery, or Mt. Potalaka Island, that makes her a real presence.
October 2, 2023
While it is very thorough and otherwise excellent analysis. It had some extremely disturbing content on self mutilation and cannibalism practice known as "kiku" without warning in multiple places. And the author regarded it as "interesting" and gave way too many details I think. It is very traumatic. And there should have been some kind of content warning. And ability to skip the highly graphic and disturbing content which in my mind had very little to do with the merciful and compassionate qualities of Quan Yin beyond sometimes miraculously healing people after their self mutilation.
Otherwise I guess it was pretty good even if rather repetitive book.
Started with the stories of people who sought boons like saving their life or providing children through repeating the Quan Yin mantras. Then there were some celibate women monks that achieved rainbow body. Then moved to the crazy kiku people. And it revisited it so often that I can't make sense of what happened after. Or what the present reality is.
The kiku practice seems to stem from an extreme version of Yong Emperor's herbalism, combined with Confucian self sacrficing devotion to parents, perhaps also with some demonic spirits that liked to kill realized monks with silly excuses like using them for medicine for corrupt people. Very distrubing stuff.
Otherwise I guess it was pretty good even if rather repetitive book.
Started with the stories of people who sought boons like saving their life or providing children through repeating the Quan Yin mantras. Then there were some celibate women monks that achieved rainbow body. Then moved to the crazy kiku people. And it revisited it so often that I can't make sense of what happened after. Or what the present reality is.
The kiku practice seems to stem from an extreme version of Yong Emperor's herbalism, combined with Confucian self sacrficing devotion to parents, perhaps also with some demonic spirits that liked to kill realized monks with silly excuses like using them for medicine for corrupt people. Very distrubing stuff.
July 20, 2013
Finally finished reading this classic! whew.
the research methodology can be greatly useful, though I'll be more interested in the negotiations of being/becomeing "chinese" while still maintain 'authenticicity' instead of taking chineseness of chinese people/locale/culture as a given. Yu's book definitely touched on the changing nature of 'chineseness' but her focus is more on the chinese transformation of this indian deity, hence 'chineseness' becomes the background. in chinese buddhist modernism, 'chineseness' definitely need to be foregrounded, so are the relations between media and religiosity/(religious identity?)
I also loved how she re-named chinese apocrypha into chinese indigenous scriptures, a much more accurate/appropriate angle to understand chinese religiosity!
the research methodology can be greatly useful, though I'll be more interested in the negotiations of being/becomeing "chinese" while still maintain 'authenticicity' instead of taking chineseness of chinese people/locale/culture as a given. Yu's book definitely touched on the changing nature of 'chineseness' but her focus is more on the chinese transformation of this indian deity, hence 'chineseness' becomes the background. in chinese buddhist modernism, 'chineseness' definitely need to be foregrounded, so are the relations between media and religiosity/(religious identity?)
I also loved how she re-named chinese apocrypha into chinese indigenous scriptures, a much more accurate/appropriate angle to understand chinese religiosity!
April 19, 2014
This scholarly and thorough book gives a good account of how Guanyin emerged in China. I especially enjoyed reading a lot of old stories about Guanyin that were woven into the book. If you are curious about Guanyin and already have some basic knowledge of the history and vocabulary of Buddhism (I often struggled with the specialized vocabulary), this will be a very enlightening book.
June 18, 2024
狗熊掰玉米，起碼是為了吃玉米，
而且相信最後一定有一根最大的玉米棒子。
但這位是只掰玉米不吃玉米誒。
而且相信最後一定有一根最大的玉米棒子。
但這位是只掰玉米不吃玉米誒。
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