Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

she sometimes in older portrayals has a small goatee. How, where, and why the sex change came
about is considered by scholars to be extremely puzzling. It must have taken place in the early Tang
dynasty from the seventh century on, then before this Avalokiteshvara was all but exclusively
worshipped in male form in China too.
Guanyin
There is already in the early fifth century a canon in which 33 different appearances of the “light god”
are mentioned and seven of these are female. This proves that the incarnation of a Bodhisattva in
female form was not excluded by the doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism. To the benefit of all suffering
beings — it says in one text — the “redeemer” could assume any conceivable form, for example that
of a holy saying, of medicinal herbs, of mythical winged creatures, cannibals, yes, even that of
women (Chayet, 1993, p. 154). But what such exceptions do not explain is why the masculine
Avalokiteshvara was essentially supplanted and replaced by the feminine Guanyin in China. In the
year 828 C.E. each Chinese monastery had at least one statue of the goddess. The chronicles report
the existence of 44,000 figures.