Jakabffy Imre szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 13. (Budapest, 1971)
HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM - MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Imre, Gabriella: Kuan-yin with Fish
changed Avalokitesvara. While one cannot meet, a special representation of this divine mercy in India, the fusion of the Goddess of Mercy with the Avalokitesvara of Buddhism has produced several interesting new types in East-Asia. The older representations generally originate in Indian prototypes lint in the later representations the Buddhist, elements, the ideal Cod-conception and the abstract way of representation, are pushed into the background in order to give way to a more materialistic, human artistic rendering. Arthur Waley 1 considers M. Sliassny's supposition questionable in connection with dating the Miao-shan legend from the 3rd millenium B.C. though the well-known and popular Nan-hai —Kuan-yin —Chiian Chuan (Complete Tradition of Kuan-yin of the Southern Sea) places the events in the 3rd millenium B.C. The Kuanyin Chi-lu Penyiian Cheng Clung sutra which is including the Miao-shan legend was discovered and published by Kuang-yen in the I7lh century. Of course, the legend can have been known earlier. According lo A. Waley 4 the elements of the legend are characteristic in the Buddhist stories of the Middle Ages, thus the legend must be at least some centuries earlier than the mentioned sutra. In his opinion the name Miao-shan itself is Buddhist, loo, am! he supposes that similarly to Sakyamuni also Avalokitesvara may have had jataka tales in the Chinese Buddhist literature. According to Henri Maspero 5 Tao-siian seems to be responable for merging the person and story of king Miao-shan (Chuang)'s third, youngest daughter into the figure of the Buddhist goddess Kuan-yin. The goddess Kuan-yin having a new. enlargened conception needed a legend of her own and Tao-süan's comments were very convenient in this respect, Tao-siian was a famous expert in the religion of his age. In his old age. however, he had visions of gods surrounding him and answering to his questions put on in connection with different unsettled problems of the religion. Once he asked who the goddess Kuan-yin had been and he was told that she was nobody else but the saint Miao-shan. Tao-süan's comments were collected and published by one of his pupils in the 7th century A.D. This collection contains the legend identifying Kuan-yin with king Miao Tohoang's daughter. The legend had been forgotten for centuries and only came into daylight in the Mongolian period when the Taoists popularized it as their own. Cnforlunntely no documents have been preserved to prove that the goddess Kuan-yin is a later development of the figure of princess Miao-shan or that Miao-shan could as a goddess of mercy have been worshipped before the spread of Buddhism in China. We can partly follow the different variants of the hypothetical story in ihe variations of the artistic represenlalions. The fusion of the elements of the Miao-shan legend with the Buddhist Avalokitesvara has enrichened art history with a new series of Kuan-yin represenlalions. Besides the traditional depictions going back lo the Indian archetypes of Avalokitesvara and Hariti represenlalions of Kuan-yin characterised by the popular elements of the Miao-shan legend are more and more frequent beginning from the 12lh century. Our statuette of Kuan-yin wilh the fish depicts a charming episode of the legend. One day the third son of the king of ihe Dragons was playing in the waves of the sea when he found himself in the net of a fisherman . . . The fisherman happily took him to the market to sell him. Miao-shan having gained the power of seeing every3 Walei), Arthur: Avalokitesvara and ihe Legend of Miao-shan. Arlibus Asiae 192."). No. II. pp. 130—132. Op. cil. p. 131. 5 Maspero. Henri: The Mythology of Modern China, in the work Asiatic Mythology, New r York, p. 350.
