Miao Shan Legend
	above account has been included in this chapter not for the purpose of propagating KYCO but, to encourage those who are seeking Kuan Yin's help to do so with firm faith. e iao han egend e legend of Kuan Yin's emanation as Princess Miao Shan has caught the hearts of all the Chinese people. To them it is common knowledge that Kuan Yin is the enlightened form of their beloved princess and therefore Kuan Yin, their Goddess of Mercy, cannot be a male God or Deity. is, in fact, is the fixed view of the Taoists and those who are not so wel -informed of Buddhism. Who can real y blame them for holding such a view when the episode of such a sweet princess turning into a God- dess happened only slightly more than two thousand years ago in a country whose history is well remembered right down to five thousand years? Towards the end of the Chou Dynasty (around 3rd Century BC), in the kingdom of Hsing Lin, there lived a king cal ed Miao Chung. He had three daughters and they were Miao Ching, Miao Yin and Miao Shan. Before the birth of the third girl, Queen Po Ta had a strange dream in which she saw a heavenly pearl transforming into a fiery sun which then tumbled down and settled at her feet. When told of it, the king, in his wisdom, considered the seeing of such a celestial sign to be an excel- lent omen and he looked forward to having a male heir to his throne. However, to his great disappointment, a girl was born to him. is was on the 19th day of the 2nd moon and she was named Miao Shan. Miao Shan grew up to be a religious and virtuous girl unaffected by the at ractions of worldly mat ers. What she yearned for was to have a quiet retreat in the mountains where she could practise the perfections of her virtues. She longed to be able to bring re- lief to all the miserable beings on earth. When his daughters were of marriageable age, the King found suitable husbands for them. While her sisters accepted their marriages, Miao Shan steadfastly refused to marry and infu- riated the father by choosing to retire to a nunnery cal ed the White Sparrow. e father made several at empts to make temple-life unbear- able to his fragile daughter so as to pursuade her to return to her palace. However, all his at empts failed for a lit le suffering was not going to deter one whose mind was set on cultivating the Buddha's path. In his anger, the King ordered that the nunnery be set on fire for such an unfilial daughter deserved to be put to death. However, the fire was instantly put out by an inundating shower which saved the lives of the princess and the few hun- dred nuns. e enraged King then decreed that Miao Shan be executed but the executioner's sword, upon contacting the prin- cess's neck, broke into smithereens! is so angered the King that he next ordered that his unfilial daughter be strangled to death with a silken cord. As she was being strangled, the tutelary god appeared in the form of a great tiger, dispersed the crowd, and carried the inaniminate body into the forest. Miao Shan's spirit descended into hel , but her sweetness and the purity of her prayers soon converted it from a place of great suffering to a paradise. is alarmed the Registrar of the Liv- ing and the Dead who then hastily petitioned Yen Lo, the King of the Underworld, to order her removal declaring, `Since it has been decreed that, in justice, there must be a heaven and a hel , if Princess Miao Shan's soul is not sent back to the upper world, there will be no hell left, but only a heaven'. Her soul was then quickly transported back to her body which was lying under a pine tree. Upon returning to life, Buddha Amitabha appeared, and directed the princess to continue her practice of the perfections in a cave cal ed Hsuan Ai, in the island of Pu-to. For nine years she devoted herself to performing acts of merits and meditational practices and attained Buddhahood. It was in Pu-to Island that she acquired her two acolytes Hoan Shen-tsai and Lung-nu, bet er known to all as Golden Youth and Jade Maiden. In the meantime, King Miao Chung, who had displeasured the Jade Emperor, Supreme Ruler of Heaven, by his heinous crimes of burning a nunnery which nearly caused the loss of so many lives and the kil ing of so virtuous a maiden as Miao Shan, that he received the punishment of an incurable disease, the only ¡ûBACK¡û |INDEX| ¡úNEXT¡ú