Puerpera Salvation and Avalokiteśvara’s Gender Transformation

บทคัดย่อ

In the Buddhist pantheon, Avalokiteśvara, the deity who looks down, is considered the most important deity and is revered throughout Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. The perfect embodiment of compassion, Avalokiteśvara guides believers towards knowledge and self-realization to vanquish ignorance. He is believed to have made a great vow to assist sentient beings in times of difficulty and to postpone his own Buddhahood until he has assisted every sentient being in achieving nirvana. In China, however, Avalokiteśvara, known as Kuan-yin/Guan-yin, 观音, is considered a goddess and is dubbed “Kuan-yin Niangniang (Goddess Kuan-yin)”. Significantly, the transformation of Kuan-yin from male to female is a phenomenon that has been observed to be specific to China. The Sui-Tang dynasty period is considered the turning point for the gender transformation of Kuan-yin. Kuan-yin in China is worshipped mainly for three functions: soul-guiding, baby-giving and puerpera salvation. The excavation of manuscripts from Dunhuang indicates the importance of puerpera salvation during the Sui-Tang period. However, scholars made attempts to connect the function of baby-giving to Kuan-yin’s gender transformation but not puerpera salvation, which is supposed to associate with women/women’s roles more closely. This paper highlights the connection between puerpera salvation and Kuan-yin’s gender transformation. It argues that the gender of Kuan-yin in China had to transform from a male to a female because Kuan-yin was worshipped for women’s labour safety, even during the process of delivering a child, which is considered highly private in ancient China, and it is not appropriate to pray to a male deity in such scenario.