indigenous Chinese goddess Pi-hsia-uian-chun, otherwise called the Holy Mother. Kuan-yin also absorbed the figure of Matsu ("Granny"), the Chinese goddess who watches over fishermen and seafarers, as well as travelers over the "sea of human sorrow" to the paradise of the Pure Land strand of Buddhism (Kinsley, 1989, pp. 28-31). Further, Kuan-yin may assume a variety of her own forms, such as the form of Miao-Shan, who legend says was a favored Chinese princess who achieved Buddhist enlightenment as a nun.
Kinsley summarizes the "central role" of Kuan-yin as "helper and savior," citing the idea in Buddhism that the enlightened one or bodhisattva is compassionate toward the unenlightened or needy (p. 35). Multiarmed or multiheaded images of Kuan-yin are felt to be symbolic of the goddess's concern with the many varieties of human need and suffering, but Kinsley suggests that such images also imply the extent of Kuan-yin's power to intervene in human affairs on behalf of those who express faith in her or to urge people toward spiritual enlightenment or moral consciousness. By extension, therefore, Kuan-yin is associated with long life.
The all-embracing compassion and responsibility that Kuan-yin represents can be interpreted as female principles of human experience, which is explained by Kinsley as the core of her popular appeal, especially to women. However, as a spiritual figure of worship (or meditation, in Buddhist terms), she is less important, although she surfaces as "an aspect of one's self or one's being" to be adopted and aspired to, as compassion is aspired to as a moral ideal in Buddhism itself (Kinsley 49-51).
One of the most powerful goddesses in Western tradition is the Greek deity Aphrodite, who is far away from compassion but nevertheless considered to be a fundamental component of human experience. Kinsley says that her historic roots are in the Near East. But it was in Greece that she found her apotheosis and st...