Avalokiteśvara
PROBABLY THE MOST WIDELY VENERATED FIGURE IN BUDDHISM AND THE BUDDHIST KEY HELD NOTHING OF HIM — while the corpus DOES hold chinese_guanyin, under the Chinese key. That is not a duplicate of this record and this batch does not make one: the East Asian Guanyin is a distinct cultic development with her own iconography and her own tradition, filed where she is practised, and the Indian Avalokitesvara of the eight great bodhisattvas is filed here. NO EDGE IS DRAWN between them, on the rule this programme has applied since lane 13, and the Chinese record is a census row. The other language-forms - Chenrezig, Kannon - are carried as aliases because the corpus holds no record under those keys; if a Tibetan or Japanese pass ever creates one, the alias is what will surface the overlap, which is exactly how lane 25's Umbu duplicate was caught. TYPE deity IS THE NEAREST CATEGORY THIS SCHEMA HAS AND THE TRADITION DOES NOT USE IT. Buddhism does not regard a Buddha or a bodhisattva as a god; the devas this corpus already holds under the Buddhist key are, in this tradition's own view, unenlightened beings inside samsara, and the figures in this block stand above them precisely by NOT being gods. The record says so rather than letting the type field make the claim.
Domains
- compassion
Relations
- of the eight great bodhisattvas with: Mañjuśrī
Sources
- Reference treatment of the eight great bodhisattvas: they are the eight principal attendants of the Buddhas in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, representing the main enlightened qualities of the Buddha — Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara, Vajrapani, Maitreya, Ksitigarbha, Akasagarbha, Samantabhadra and Sarvanivaranaviskambhin; Manjushri embodies wisdom, Avalokiteshvara compassion, Vajrapani power; Maitreya represents loving-kindness and is prophesied to be the next Buddha when the teachings of Shakyamuni fade; Ksitigarbha embodies the vow to rescue beings from the lowest realms, particularly the hell realms; Samantabhadra's particular specialty is making the most potent aspirations and wishing prayers; Tara, the embodiment of compassion and swift activity, is related to this bodhisattva tradition.