Exploring India

[Chinese-Dragon]

How many Bodhisatvas are there..I thought only one is there who came from India...

Loads of them. Though Guanyin (Avalokitesvara) is by far the most popular in East Asia, especially in the coastal areas.

For my area she is probably the most popular deity.

List of bodhisattvas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the image from the wiki page:

Relief image of a Bodhisattva, in Anhui province (the province where Hu Jintao was born).

 

[KS]

^^ Whoa for a Buddhist deity, she is sure as hell well armed, infact armed to the head.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

^^ Whoa for a Buddhist deity, she is sure as hell well armed, infact armed to the head.

Why not?

Guanyin's full name is Guanshiyin. It is a literal translation of Avalokitesvara.

Guanshiyin (观世&#38899 = "Observing the sounds/cries of the world."

She is the Goddess of compassion and loved in all of East Asia.

 

[Water Car Engineer]

2000+

Now

 

[KS]

It is because ancient India was always a center for studies...nalanda, takshashila always had many foreign scholars studying and may be even teaching....we do not many borrowed things from china like chinese fishing nets in cochin south India...

@Chinese-Dragon;
Very interesting observations. Something that has crossed my mind too. But I've been yet unable to come up with a coherent hypothesis for this phenomenon.

p.s. CD; try asking our resident scholar Speeder to explain this? Maybe he can amuse us some more.
However on a serious note; I think I'll try some digging up on this matter.

Shall we blame that on the Brahmins ?

AFAIK there used to be a belief that indians must not cross the border of the bharat-varsha or else they would become a mleccha..

And the reason suggeted by kingkobra could also be one of the reasons..

 

[Vicar]

Chinese Worship at Hindu Temple - YouTube

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

^^^ Nice video.

If you notice, next to the Sri Krishnan temple, there is a "Kwan Im" temple. I.e. A temple for Guanyin.

(It is written differently due to different Chinese dialects, but the Chinese characters are the same).

 

[KS]

Try KS and Manas? Not very friendly, but they'll give you a good fight, and all three of you will be too tied up to do anything kachra elsewhere.

Getting a bit presumptuous, are we ?

Why not?

Guanyin's full name is Guanshiyin. It is a literal translation of Avalokitesvara.

Guanshiyin (观世&#38899 = "Observing the sounds/cries of the world."

She is the Goddess of compassion and loved in all of East Asia.

I meant armed as in armed with weapons...Trishul, chakra, sword etc..She looks more like Goddess of war. Is there any background for that ?

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

I meant armed as in armed with weapons...Trishul, chakra, sword etc..She looks more like Goddess of war. Is there any background for that ?

Guanyin is the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion, not war.

The first picture in Anhui is an old one so I don't know, but I haven't seen her holding weapons in any (relatively) more recent statues.

Who knows? Maybe it's just a thing to do with different eras perceiving weapons in different ways.

Anyway, here is another statue of Guanyin from China in the Ming Dynasty:

A Guanyin statue from Japan:

One from Vietnam:

And one from Korea:

 

[KS]

See, the Korean Goddess is carrying weapons..

Is is possible that they are all different incarnations of the same Goddess like we have one Goddess Shakthi and then various incarnations of her like Meenakshi, Parvati, Durga , Kali etc..?

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

See, the Korean Goddess is carrying weapons..

Is is possible that they are all different incarnations of the same Goddess like we have one Goddess Shakthi and then various incarnations of her like Meenakshi, Parvati, Durga , Kali etc..?

Yes that is likely.

The Vedic Deities appear differently to different people in different countries. Theoretically they are supposed to be incarnations of the same original Deities.

 

[zaxcolix]

...one could almost say it looks like a hindu deity ...

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

...one could almost say it looks like a hindu deity ...

They are all "Vedic" Deities. So there is a lot of commonality between Hinduism/Buddhism/Jainism.

And yes, they do look like Hindu Deities. Which makes sense since that is where they originated from.

 

[KS]

...one could almost say it looks like a hindu deity ...

Yeah I thought so..The deity looks like a combination of Brahma with the four heads and Durga with the multiple arms. But I did not know She was worshipped throughtout East Asia.

 

[zaxcolix]

They are all "Vedic" Deities. So there is a lot of commonality between Hinduism/Buddhism/Jainism.

And yes, they do look like Hindu Deities. Which makes sense since that is where they originated from.

These deities are not Vedic...........Hinduism is a bit more than the 4 Vedas.