The Thousand Arms of Compassion

There’s a story in Mahayana Buddhist belief of a deity who vowed never to rest until all humanity and sentient life was free of suffering. Struggling to hear and distinguish all the cries of the world his head split into eleven pieces. Amitabha, the King of Buddhas, saw the deity’s dilemma and gave him eleven heads to hear the cries more clearly. When the deity heard the cries he reached out to comfort them all, but there were too many and his arms shattered. Amitabha came to his aid again and gave him a thousands arms. With these the deity found he could at last comfort any who call his name for help.

The deity’s name is Avalokitesvara (the pronunciation is given in the video below), the most important deity after Buddha. If you’re a Buddhist yourself you’ll know all about him, so I apologise in advance (being a Methodist) if I misunderstand him. Avalokitesvara’s name evolved from a Sanskrit phrase meaning “the lord who looks down on to the sounds of the world”, the sounds being the cries of the suffering.

Avalokitesvara is a bodhisattva, a deity who is on a path to becoming a Buddha, is venerated across the whole of south-east Asia and the Indian subcontinent and has many, many different names and attributes, including a female form named Kuan-yin or Guanyin.

Because of the dual gender representations of Avalokitesvara many transgender communities in the West have begun to use the female Kuan-yin as an icon of transgender identity. Whether this will become more generally accepted is a matter of time, but it is somewhat inappropriate because Kuan-yin and Avalokitesvara, female and male, are the same deity and exist simultaneously.

But let’s look at how this deity came to exist in two genders.

The earliest written reference to him is in the 1st century in the “Lotus Sutra”. It describes Avalokitesvara as an attendant of Amitabha. The 25th chapter of the sutra describes him as compassionate and kind and among the highest deities in Buddhist cosmology. The chapter contains descriptions of 33 manifestations that Avalokitesvara can take, male and female, young or old, or any form, depending on the needs and context of the help that is required.

The 4th century “Karandavyuha Sutra” is devoted entirely to Avalokitesvara. This sutra is also the origin of the well-known mantra “Om mani padme um”.

Historians are not sure how old the veneration of Avalokitesvara is. It may have begun in northern India, perhaps in Kashmir. From there Avalokitesvara spread with Buddhist belief eastward across Tibet and into China, and south to cover the rest of India and east to the rest of Asia.

As Buddhism spread its scriptural texts were translated, and in 1st century China the name Avalokitesvara was translated as Guanyin, more popularly Kuan-yin in the West. The translated name means the same as Avalokitesvara - “the lord who looks down on to the sounds of the world”.

The world’s largest statue of Kuan-yin, the Sendai Daikannon in Japan. It represents Kannon, the Japanese name for Kuan-yin. It is 100 metres high. Between 1991 and 1993 it was the tallest statue in the world. Currently it is the 5th tallest. In the top 30 tallest statues in the world 11 are of Kuan-yin.

There are several theories why Kuan-yin became a predominantly female manifestation. One is that her worshippers in Tibet integrated her into another female deity called Tara. Another is that she somehow became associated with the legendary Chinese princess called Miao Shan. Perhaps Chinese culture in the early centuries saw compassion as a more feminine trait and depicted Kuan-yin accordingly.

Before the Song dynasty (960-1279) images of Kuan-yin in China show her as either male or female, illustrating the variations of forms Avalokitesvara can take, as described in the “Lotus Sutra”. Gradually the female image began to predominate.

There are thousands, possibly millions, of images and statues of Avalokitesvara in all his manifestations around the world where Buddhist belief exists. Each Asian nation and regional branch of Buddhism has a different name and preferred gender identity for the deity. The thousand-armed manifestation I mentioned at the start is one of many. In other countries Avalokitesvara has fewer arms, and usually just two.

Kuan-yin’s growing popularity among the transgender community began at the end of the last century in the USA. Just why the manifestation of Kuan-yin was preferred is not fully explained. Avalokitesvara did not change gender to become Kuan-yin because he still exists as a male deity. There are also some male images of Kuan-yin still being produced. If anything Kuan-yin could be described as intersex or agender. I don’t claim to provide any answers to what gender identity best describes Avalokitesvara, Kuan-yin, and the hundreds of other names and manifestations this deity exhibits.

There is a lot we still have to learn and understand about the world’s spiritual deities and their meaning before we impose Western-defined gender identities upon them, especially by people of a different faith, belief or culture. Cultural appropriation is a tricky area.

Every role model in any community fulfils a specific purpose and perhaps Kuan-yin gives a new insight into gender and transgender identity that others have yet to realise. Above all the deity is a compassionate one. Perhaps that is what should be brought forward for Kuan-yin as a transgender role model. The transgender community goes through so much pain and abuse that compassion may be what it needs more than anything else, and Kuan-yin provides just that.

Below is a video that explains Avalokitesvara is more detail.