RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 56 Yin in the other temple, the Pi-yun Ssu, depicts her with only two arms sitting cross-legged on a recumbent blue lion. Her assistants are an unnamed dark-faced elderly minister who appears to be South Asian, standing holding a tablet before his chest and dressed in a long blue robe. Her other attendant is the Red Youth, Hung Hai-eh, standing on her left hand with his hands held together before his chest, and dressed in a red robe over green trousers with a flowing scarf-like halo. Taking the three groups, the twenty Deva listed in Soothill, and the two groups in the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu, we have twenty deities common to all three. These are: Brahma, Indra, Pancika, Sarasvati, Laksmi, Skanda [Wei T'o], Prthivi, Hariti, Marici, Surya, Candra, Siva, Yamaraja, Bodhidhruma, Guyapati, Kinnara and the four T'ien-wang guardians Vaisravana, Dhrtarastra, Virudhaka and Virupaksa. In the Ta Pei Ssu we also have five additional Deva not present in the Pi-yun Ssu, the Asura, Vimalakirti, Nanda Upananda and Mahoraga. A further two Deva images are seen only in the Pi-yun Ssu. These are Lei Kung and Sagara. Taking each of the deities in turn, we shall examine their background and in particular their Brahmanist [or Vedic] origins, their role in the Chinese pantheon and any ambiguities or contradictions we encounter. The important three Brahmanist deities are known in Sanskrit as the Trimurti: the creator Brahma the preserver Vishnu the destroyer Siva Brahma and Siva are indeed included in the two temples whilst Vishnu is not3. Though a major Hindu deity today Vishnu was not so during the Vedic era of the second millennium BC. His particular task ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 58 seen in a comparatively modern temple near Taipei. A lengthy tunnel connects the main part of the Kuan Tu temple complex, to the North-west of Taipei, with the front entrance overlooking the Tamshui River. Some twenty-eight images stand in glass-fronted niches carved into the rock down the sides of the tunnel. These large individual images are of the Early Buddhas, the Ku Fo; the Buddhas of pre-history, the Buddhas who came before Sakyamuni, The Buddha. They have no altars and as there is an altar dedicated to the Thousand-arm and Thousand-Eye Kuan Yin P'u-sa at the river end of the tunnel they are not offered incense individually. Several aspects of the hagiography of the images in the cave/tunnel are intriguing. First of all, those holding weapons have them in their left hand. They are mostly dressed in gilded armour, and finally, their titles in Chinese, though Sinicised Sanskrit, have proved impossible to translate into the original Sanskrit and are therefore unidentified. Several of these unidentified deities have been depicted in Taiwanese religious literature but without any explanation apart from being listed under a general title of Supportive Incantations to Buddha, Ta Pei Chou Fo 大悲咒佛. The following Vedic deities who have been noted in one or both of the temples in the Western Hills would seem not to be present in the cave/tunnel: Marici, Pancika, Hariti, Pippala [Bodhidruma], Laksmi, Prthivi, Surya, Candra, Vimalakirti, Nanda Upananda and Skanda/Veda. Of the scores of books, both the popular illustrated and monastic academic, produced over the last half century in Taiwan describing the Buddhas, bodhisattvas and the hundreds of minor deities of Buddhism, one at least has listed what they have called The Celestial Guardians Division. This list includes not only the Four Diamond Kings, the T'ien Wang, [Vaisravana, Dhrtarastra, Virudhaka and Virupaksa] but nine of the Deva seen in the Western Hills. These are Indra [Sakra-devanam], Brahma [Maha-Brahman], Marici, Laksmi [Sri-maha-devi], Sarasvati, Yamaraja, Guhyapati, Skanda [Wei T'o] and Gandharva. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 63 the golden bowl being his unique characteristic. Mahesvara, Mahadevi or Siva, known in Chinese as Mo-hsi-shou-lo T'ien 摩醯首羅天 Mahesvara is one of the numerous titles borne by one of the best known of the Indian deities, Siva. He has come to be regarded as the Supreme Being though he more generally represents the more malignant forces and destruction, all part of the cycle of creation and destruction. He is married to either Uma Mahesvara [also known as Parvati], by whom he had a son named Skanda [see 21 below], or to Kali, who is also Durga. The latter is known as Hariti [and in Chinese Kuei-tzu Mu: see 6 below] whose image is also one of the twenty-eight Devi. Hariti has one face, six arms and a necklace of skulls". Images of Siva stand in both the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu. In the Ta Pei Ssu he is portrayed as a typical northern Chinese deity dressed in multi-coloured robes and a tall Buddhist crown, but with six arms and an ageless Chinese face of indeterminate sex. He looks like and could easily be confused with other multi-arm Buddhist deities as he has no unique characteristic. In the Pi-yun Ssu he is naked apart from a skirt in colourfully decorated cloth down to his knees. He has four arms and a smaller head on top of his normal head. He has red spiky hair on both heads and fangs rising out of the lower jaw of his normal head. Soothill described Siva as having eight arms, three eyes and riding a large white bull, holding a handful of snakes and a small drum, and can be represented as the phallic symbol. 4] Maritci [Maritchi or Marici] known in Chinese as Chun-t'i P'u-sa The Tantric [Lamaist] bodhisattva, Chun-t'i, is the Buddhist form of the Hindu personification of light and an offspring of Brahma, Cundi or Candi. She is often confused with the Tantric many-armed Kuan Yin and the Taoist stellar deity, Tou-mu Hsing-chün. Two separate deities also are referred to by Chinese devotees as Chun-t'i; these are as ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 64 Maritchi [or Marici Deva], [a Sanskrit term for the Indian mythological form of Parbati, the wife of Siva]; and Ma-yeh, the mother of Sakyamuni, The Buddha, the whole being confused by devotees who tend to describe them all as Chun-t'i, with the legends of Maritchi and Cundi producing an inextricably involved and perplexing picture. Images of Marici are present in both the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu and in both temples he, rather than she, is portrayed as a standing Buddhist deity with eight arms and with three faces. The face facing forward is of a benign human with hooded eyes commonly seen on Tibetan images. He has a third eye in the centre of his forehead. The other two are faces of a pig and of a human. He is dressed in colourful robes and a five-leaf Buddhist crown, and is barefoot. The association between Chun-t'i and Kuan Yin goes back to the original relationship in Buddhism of Chun-t’i with the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara who promised to save mankind and bring them to deliverance before they, the two bodhisattvas, Chun-t'i and Avalokitesvara themselves entered Nirvana. Marici has the face and eight arms of Chun-t'i, and is one of the six manifestations of Avalokitesvara who is concerned especially with humans, rather than the deities and demons. Chun-t'i in the form of Avalokitesvara is a male deity, though Tantric sects, giving her an entirely different role left her feminine. Legends about Chun-t'i usually include stories of her valour in battle. According to the Ming novel The Deification of the Gods [Feng-shen Yen-i], from which many of the beliefs of folk religion devotees have evolved, Chun-t’i was summoned to Heaven during the legendary period of Chinese history when the heroes and Immortals were emerged, in order to acquire the necessary skills to take on K'ung Hsüan, one of the contestants for the dynastic throne. This was because she had attained the required degree of perfection on Earth. She found herself whisked aloft in a rainbow, and having acquired the skills necessary she reappeared in a cloud of fire with twenty-four heads and eighteen arms and, throwing a silken cord around her adversary's throat, she turned K'ung Hsüan into a one-eyed peacock on which she rode off to the Western Heavens. Images of Chun-t'i show her with four or nine pairs of arms, each ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 90 Chun-t'i P'u-sa Marici Jih T'ien-tzu Surya Yüeh-kung T'ien-tzu Candra Lung Wang Sagara Yen-mo-lo Yamaraja Ah Su-lo Asura Kan Ta-po Wei Mo-chi Nan-t'o Ma-hu-lo Tzu-wei Ta-ti Chin na-lo Gandharva Vimalakirti Nanda Mahoraga a Chinese deity Kinnara Tung Yueh Ta-ti A Chinese deity ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 91 Appendix C THE TWENTY-SEVEN SO-CALLED DEVA WHOSE IMAGES STAND IN THE TA PEI TIEN, ONE OF THE BA DA CHU [THE EIGHT GREAT SITES] IN PEKING'S WESTERN HILLS Asura Candra Dhrtarastra Gandharva Guhyapati raja Hariti Kinnara Ksitigarbha Laksmi devi Maha Isvara Mahabrahman - Brahma Marici Nanda Upar Nanda Pancika Pippala ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 96 Appendix E THE LIST OF TWENTY DEVA 十天 +* IN SOOTHILL'S DICTIONARY OF CHINESE BUDDHIST TERMS Maha Brahman - Brahma Sakra devanam - Indra Vaisravana Dhrtarastra Virudhaka The Four Diamond Kings - Temple Guardians of the Four Directions Virupaksa Guhyapati Mahesvara Pancika Sarasvati Laksmi Skanda Prthivi Bodhidruma or Bodhivrksa Hariti Marici Surya Candra Sagara Yama-raja ================================================================================