16. POPULAR ESOTERIC DEITIES AND
THE SPREAD OF THEIR CULTS
Richard D. McBride IIDifferentiating esoteric Buddhist deities from the mainstream
Mahāyāna Buddhist pantheon is a difficult task. Scholars have clas-
sified as “esoteric” many of the most popular Buddhist deities. This
is the result of presuming that any figure (represented in an icon or
image form) that was either held in high esteem by later self-styled
esoteric Buddhists, or was the primary figure in prescriptive ritual
texts presently classified as tantric or esoteric, or that appears in a
mandala, is “esoteric.” The basis of classification should instead bethe
direct link of a deity to a particular practice or set of practices that
are distinctly and undisputedly esoteric in nature. In other words, all
the popular buddhas and bodhisattvas, and many of the gods of the
Mahāyāna pantheon, are potentially esoteric or possess esoteric attri-
butes in some contexts, such as the buddhas of the four directions and
the eight great bodhisattvas that appear in a variety of contexts and
were later absorbed into the tantric or esoteric pantheon (Getty 1928;
Banerjee 1994).
The most popular and well attested of all so-called esoteric deities are
several manifestations of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin ,
Guanshiyin ): the eleven-headed form (Ekādaśa mukha, Shiy-
imian ), the white-clad or white-robed form (Pān ̣ḍaravāsinī,
Baiyi ), the lasso-wielding form (Amoghapāśa, Bukong jiansuo
), the thousand-armed or thousand-handed form (Sahasrab-
huja, Qianshou ), and the thousand-eyed and thousand-armed
form (Qianyan qianbei ) (Wong 2007a; 2007b; 2008). Stated
simply, most scriptures containing dhāraṇīs and procedures for their
ritual use taught by Avalokiteśvara or one of the deity’s manifestations
listed above, with the exception of the Heart Sūtra and its famous
dhāraṇī, but including indigenous Chinese Buddhist scriptures (a.k.a.
Chinese Buddhist apocrypha), such as King Gao’s Sūtra of Avalokiteśvara
(Gaowang Guanshiyin jing , T. 2895), are believed to be
representative of popular esoteric forms of Avalokiteśvara (Mallmann