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Miracle Tales andthe Domestication of Kuan-yin

Yü Chün-fang
Professor ofRutgers University

Summary
Miracle stories about Kuan-yin began to be compiled inthe fourth century and continue to be collected and circulated down tothe present day. In this article I discuss how the miracle tale collections served as a medium for the domestication of Kuan-yin by focusing on several questions.

First of all, who were the compilers?　

Is there any difference in the choices made on the selections between a monk compilor and that of a lay person?　

What is the role of literatias promoters of the belief in Kuan-yin?　

Second, to whom does Kuan-yin appear and how does the bodhisattva appear: in dreams or in broad daylight?　

as male or female?　

monkor layperson?　

from what dangers does Kuan-yin rescue the believer and what benefits does the bodhisattva bestow?　

Third, what is theconnection between icons, visions and the changing iconograpy of Kuan-yin?

Fourth, how are thecollections organized?　

are the individual stories simply listed one after another without anyclear organizational principle?

are they categorized to fit a scriptural paradigm and there by serve to provide evidential proof for the truth ofthe sutra?　

and finally, compared to the early collections, do the later collections show marked departures reflecting historical changes effected both bythe new developments of the cult and new anxieties and hopes of the believers?

關鍵詞：

1.Kuan-yin

2.miracle tales

3. “stimulus andresponse”（kan-ying）

 
Anyone who visits a temple inTaiwan, Hong Kong and even in Mainland China can often find posters, pamphlets, brochures and books piled on the side tables or stacked on bookshelves along the walls of the main hall. Theyare printed by lay devotees and are placed there for visitors to browse or take home for later reading.　

Among the pious literature distributed free in this fashion, many are scriptures, such as the Diamond Sutra, the Heart Sutra, the A-mi-t'o ching（Smaller Sukhavativyuha Sutra, but the“Universal Gateway” chapter of the Lotus Sutrais by far the favorite.　

Stories about Kuan-yin's miraculous responses are also found very frequently among them. This is one of the best ways for a true believer to spread the Dharma and to create merit for him／herself at the same time.
The compilation of such stories about Kuan-yin's salvific deeds is not of course a modern phenomenon It began already in the fourth century. Contemporary stories, like their ancient counterparts, are characterized by their specificity:

who experiences the event when and where are usually carefully noted. When we examine the modern stories, they attract our attention by their ability to address our current concerns. Kuan-yin saves devotees more from cancer and car accident, for instance, than from imprisonment and shipwreck as in former times.

As the time changes, people begin to have new problems and new fears instead of old ones. Kuan-yin is nevertheless still always ready and capableof rendering help. In thus updating and upgrading the bodhisattva's competence, the stories contribute to the continuing faith of the people in the savior.　

I argue that this has been the role played bythe miracle stories all along. It is through such stories that the Chinese people forma personal connection with Kuan-yin. The stories concretize the knowledge about Kuan-yin provided by the scriptures. They make the sculpted and painted images of Kuan-yin take on living life. Miracle tales teach people about Kuan-yin and validate what thescriptures claim the bodhisattva can do. They also bear a close relationship to the cult oficons. Experiences of miracles often lead to the creation oficons or, conversely, the worship of Kuan-yin images facilitate the experiences. Finally, how a person experiencing the miracle sees Kuan-yin in his/her vision can often be predetermined by the existing iconographies of the bodhisattva or, in another direction, lead to the creating of new ones. There is acircularity between Kuan- yin, the devotee, andthe icon.
I offer a few examples culled from a collection of such stories published in the Buddhist journal Lion's Roar（Shih-tzuhou), which could serve as one of several sources supplying materials for such devotional liteature distributed in the temples, the other sources being traditional compendia, oral accounts, and the compiler's personal experiences.
The first one comes from Mao Ling-yun who was the compiler of the collection. When he read the news in the newspaper Central Daily on October 22, 1974 that a typhoon was moving northwestly toward Taiwan, he began to chant the name of Kuan-yin with great sincerity and prayed that it would change direction or reduce its power so that it would not come ashore to create havoc. Sure enough, it began to move toward north and northeast, then suddenly turning directly westward, it left the area.

In the meantime, it reduced its power and did not even cause much rain in Taiwan. In recent years, he would pray to Kuan-yin when ever there was a warning for typhoon and everytime it happened like this.
The second story comes from a woman devotee named K'uan-fen Chan Chung who related it to the compiler. Mrs Chung lives in Tai-chung, Taiwan, right across from the International Cinema on Fu-hsing Road. Her third son, Ching-li, was standing in front of the front door one day in the fall of 1953 when he was fifteen years old. A freight truck suddenly veered right in order to avoid hitting the three children playing inthe middle of the street and struck him instead. His clothes were caught and he was dragged along by the truck which could not stop right away. He cried out three times, “My mother believes in the Buddha. Kuan-yin Bodhisattva, please come quickly to save me!” The truck came to a stop and fortunately he was not killed. But his left arm was mangled badly. Because sand and pebbles got mixed together with blood and flesh, they could not be taken out.

He stayed in the hospital for four days and the arm became black and festered. The doctor told the mother that he would have to amputate the arm in order to save the son's life. She asked the doctorto first cut away the festered part before attempting to amputatethe arm. She called on Kuan-yin throughout the operation. When the boy woke up from the anesthesia, he said, “Just now a white-robed doctor carried me to Heaven and made heavenly maidens dance for me. I was very happy.” Apparently the White-robed Kuan-yin　

used her skillful means and made him forget his pain. He dreamt three times of Kuan-yin sprinkle pure water with the willow branch on to his damaged arm and he felt immediate coolness. Flesh gradually grew and the arm was healed.

 
The third story was supplied bythe famous woman writer Hsieh Ping-ying who wrote the preface to the collection. She related that she fell and broke her right leg on August 31, 1972 on board the ship sailing for America. Because there was no doctor and no medicine, she spent the entire twenty days chanting the “Universal Gateway” chapter, the Great Compassion Dharani, and Kuan-yin's name to reduce her pain. When she landed in America she was x-rayed in Michigan and NewYork and her doctors were astonished. Because although the leg was broken and the bones were crushed, it was not infested or even swollen. This was truly a miracle! he added that in the following year, 1973, she went to a two-week retreat at theGolden Mountain Temple in San Francisco. During that time, she became very clear-headed and intelligent. She painted several pictures of the bodhisattva although she did not know how to paint and composed fifteen poems in half an hour although she had not written any poem for several decades.
When I interviewed pilgrims on P'u-t'o island in March of 1987, one of the questions I asked them was if they knew of any stories about Kuan-yin's response either to their own prayer or somebody else's.

Invariably the reply was affirmative. I will just cite two examples from my field notes. A young woman of twenty-four came with her mother, a retired nurse of forty-nine, from Shanghai to fulfill a vow（huan-yüan). Two years ago the mother came down with cancer of the intestines. When she was operated, the cancer was very advanced and had spread. So the doctor sewed her up and predicted that she would die soon. Mother prayed to Kuan-yin for a whole year and vowed that if she should survive, she would come to P'u-t'o to give thanks. Now two years had passed and she was well. That was why mother and daughter were there.

 
A fifty year old fisherman from Ning-p'o had come to P'u-t'o six times. He told me that originally he did not believe in Buddhism. But ten years ago, in 1977, his left pinky finger was bitenoff by a snake and the whole arm became paralyzed. He went to Shanghai andBeijing for cure but had no success after spending 4000 RMB. His mother then accompanied him to pray to Kuan-yin at the Buddha's Peak nickname for Hui-chi Monastery situated on the highest point ofthe island）on P'u-t'o. One month later he had a dream in which he receiveda shot. It was so piercingly painful that he jumped up in his sleep and woke his wife. Soon after he could move his left arm. Believing that Kuan-yin had saved him, he came in 1979, the first year when P'u-t'o was reopened to the public after theCultural Revolution. He went up to the Buddha'sPeak following the Pilgrim'sPath（an uphill path leading from Fa-yü Monastery to Hui-chi Monastery）, bowing every three steps to show his thankfulness. He also told me about a miracle which happened to eight fishermen whom he met. Their boat went out with three other boats three years ago. There was a big storm and the other boats capsized drowning more than forty people. They followed a light which appeared in front of them and reached P'u-t'o safely.

When they embarked, the light also disappeared. They started coming every year on the 19th day of the 6th month （one of the three holy days of Kuan-yin, the day Kuan-yin achieved enlightenment）, making one full prostration after walking every three steps along thePilgrim's Path.

Miracle Tales and the Theory of kan-ying
I have called these stories “miracle tales” , for they do share a common feature with miracles as understood in the Western traditions. According to the Encyclopaedia Brittannica, miracle is “an extraordinary and astonishing happening that is attributed to the presence and action of an ultimate ordivine power” （Micropaedia VI: 927c）. What happened to the individuals whose stories I have retold would undoubtedly have been viewed by the mas nothing but extraordinary and astonishing.　They would also attribute them to the divine powerof Kuan-yin.　The Chinese word for such stories, however, isling-kan,“efficacious response” , or ling-ying, “efficacious manifestation” , or ying-yen, “evidential manifestation”. All these expressions are derived from an indigenous world view which believes that everything in the world is interrelated and interdependent. This beliefis called kan-ying which literally means “stimulas and response”, or, “sympathetic resonance”. John Henderson, referring to it as“cosmic resonance”, says, “According to this theory, things of the same category but in different cosmic realms were supposed to affect one another by virtue of a mutual sympathy, to resonate like properly attuned pitchpipes” （1984: 20）.

The relationship between the devotees and Kuan-yin is built on the theory of Ｋan-yin： their prayer and calling aloud of Kuan-yin's name is the initiating stimulus or trigger which, when it is sincere and desperate enough, is answered with Kuan-yin's response. Kuan-yin does not act gratuitously.　

Human suppliants are linked to Kuan-yin through sincerity（cheng）, for it is through sincerity that the mechanism of stimulus and response is set into motion. Although Avalokiteshvara was already known in India as the savior from perils, and Buddhist scriptures proclaim this as a central message, the Chinese compilers of miracle tales nevertheless understood the miraculous workings through this indigenous epistomological lense, just as the persons who themselves experienced the events did.
In order for us to understand why the Chinese see Kuan-yin in this way, it maybe helpful to discuss briefly the Chinese views of the universe prior to the introduction of Buddhisminto China. The world in which human beings live is called in the Chinese language, “Heaven andEarth”（t'ien-ti）.

Unlike most other religions, Chinese religion does not have a creator god. On the contrary, as seen in the Book of Changes（I-ching）, one of the basic Confucian classics, and a divinatory handbook of great antiquity, “Heaven andEarth” , is the origin of everything, including human beings, in the universe. This creating and sustaining force, otherwise known as Tao or the Way, is seen as good and the highest goal of the human life is to live in conformity to it. There is no God transcendent and separate from the world