. avalokitevara 527
texts of expressly Tibetan provenance (Tanaka Kimiaki 1996). In
customary lists that include six or seven esoteric manifestations of
Avalokiteśvara, we also regularly find Guanyin with eleven heads
(Ekādaśamukha, Shiyimian Guanyin ), Cundī (Zhunti
[ ] ) (Gimello 2004), and she who knits her brows (Bhṛkutī,
Pijuzhi ) (Stein 1986; de Mallman 1948; Fréderic 1995, 163–
82). Each specific form rescues beings from one of the six realms:
hells (narakagati, diyudao ), hungry ghosts (pretagati, eguidao
), animals (tiryagyonigati, chushengdao ), titans
(asura-gati, xiuluodao ), humans (manus ̣ya-gati, renjiandao
) and gods (deva-gati, tiandao ) (Gotō 1958, 105–58).
Another aspect of Avalokiteśvara in China is that nearly all Chi-
nese Buddhists have viewed Guanyin as female, apparent in the white-
robed (Pāṇḍaravāsinī, Baiyi ) Guanyin, which can be connected
to at least two feminine esoteric forms of Avalokiteśvara, Cundī and
Tārā, in addition to the salvific nature of Guanyin with eleven heads
or a thousand eyes and arms, not to mention the indigenous Chi-
nese water-moon (Shuiyue ), fish-basket (Yulan ); and Miss
Malang (Malangfei ) Avalokiteśvara (Iyanaga 2002, ch. 10 and
13; Yü, Chün-fang 1994, 2001). Repentance rites with these forms of
Avalokiteśvara became widespread from the tenth and eleventh cen-
turies in China (Reis-Habito 1991, 1994).
There is another aspect of Chinese devotion to Guanyin that reflects
tantric, rather than esoteric, influences upon Chinese Buddhism. As
Chinese Buddhists increasingly interacted with Tibetans and Mongo-
lians beginning in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the illustrious
six-syllable Sanskrit mantra Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ (an mani bami
hong ), or an moni boneming hong in
the Kāraṇdavyūha sūtra (Dasheng zhengyan baowang jing
4, T. 1050.20:62c24) became a valuable link between Chinese
and Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhists. The Kāraṇdavyūha was translated
into Chinese by the Kaśmīri *Devaśānti (Tianxizai , d. 1000)
during the latter decades of the tenth century, and the text accords in
form and function with tantric ritual manuals (kalpa, yigui ), the
use of which distinguishes Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist ritual from
one another (Tucci 1971a). The Kāraṇdavyūha sūtra, however, had
been almost completely ignored in the study of Chinese Buddhism
until Gimello (2004) took up the Liao dynasty (1125–1220)
monk Daoshen’s Xianmi yuantong chengfo xinyaoji