. goddess genealogy 895
Avalokiteśvara is known to have changed gender in China, from male
to female, in the early Song dynasty (960–1279), but Ruyilun/Nyoi-
rin appears to have taken on explicitly female characteristics only in
Japan, possibly by the mid-ninth century.^5 There she was worshipped
in medieval Shingon and Tendai as one of the esoteric “six Kan-
non” (roku Kannon ) that became popular during the Heian
period.^6
Nyoirin’s cintāmaṇi helped to catalyze her transformations in
Japan, triggering a cascade of new associations with both local
and Indian deities through a process of “metonymic drift” that led
to an identification of her jewel with both Buddha relics and the
jewel of the imperial regalia (Faure 1999a, 19).^7 As Nyoirin came
to play a central role in court rituals, her identity overlapped with
those of various jewel-bearing deities, including female nāga (snake
or dragon deities; long ; ryū) such as Seiryō Gongen
, as well as Benzaiten (Sarasvatī; Biancaitian), Kichijōten
(Laks mī or Śrī Mahādevī; Jixiangtian), and Dakiniten ̣
(D ̣ākiṇī; Tujinitian).^8 She also became a favorite object of worship
for women and was associated with fertility, childbirth, and, by the
(^5) On Avalokiteśvara’s gender transformations, see the classic study by Stein 1986,
17–80. For a more recent encyclopedic study, see Chün-fang Yü 2001 6.
These tantric forms of Avalokiteśvara appear in sūtras that describe various eso-
teric rites devoted to them; the bodhisattva no longer merely attends and carries out
the work of buddhas but appears as a savior figure in his own right. These tantric
forms include the “Noble” (Ārya; Sheng ; Shō), “Thousand-Armed” (Sahasrabhuja;
Jianshou ; Senju) or “Thousand-Eyed” (Sahasranetra; Jianyan ; Sengen),
“Eleven-Headed” (Ekādaśamukha; Shiyimian ; Jūchimen), and “Horse-Headed”
(Hayagrīva; Matou ; Batō), as well as “Pure” (Cundī; Zhunti ; Juntei), and
“Fisher [of Human Beings]” (Amoghapāśa; Bukongjuansu ; Fukūkenjaku),
who came to replace Juntei in the Tendai tradition. For a discussion of the rivalry
between Shingon and Tendai over the “true” esoteric six Kannon, and the symbolic
importance of Nyoirin Kannon within this milieu, see Hayami 1981; for a general
overview of the six Kannon, see Hayami 2000. 7
On Nyoirin’s connection with relics in medieval Japan, see Faure 1999b, 271–87;
and Faure’s forthcoming 8 Raging Gods: The Implicit Pantheon of Medieval Japan.
Of course, the cintāmaṇi is a common tantric motif, and Jizō (Ks ̣itigarbha;
Dizang) is another well-known example of a (generally male) Buddhist deity who
proffers a wish-fulfilling jewel to devotees. Thus the cintāmaṇi possesses no inher-
ently feminine characteristics; rather, in Nyoirin’s case it happened to converge
with those possessed by various goddess figures whose paths she crossed. At
the same time, the bodhisattva’s jewel and her place in the esoteric ritual pan-
theon linked her with several male or androgynous deities, including, among oth-
ers, Aizen Myōō , Myōken (Miaojian), Monju (Mañjuśrī;
Wenshu), and Miroku (Maitreya; Mile), as well as the legendary histori-
cal figures of Kūkai , Eisai (1141–1215), and Shōtoku Taishi