Kuan shih yin tzu tsai

Name(s): Kuan-Yin; Guanyin;  Kuan shih yin tzu tsai

Meaning of name: "the sovereign who looks on the sounds of prayers"

Motif(s): Goddess of compassion and mercy.

Form(s): one thousand eyes, one thousand hands; Androgynous -appears as male to men seeking solace, appears as a beautiful gracious woman to women who are anguished. 

Myth: There are many myths associated with Kuan-Yin.

Surrounding her name: It is said that when Kuan-shih yin tzu tsai was "about to enter heaven, she heard a wail emanating from the world and heeded the sound instead of proceeding immediately toward her destination".

Surrounding her nature: It is said that Kuan-Yin was the youngest daughter of three whose story goes as follows. Upon reaching marriageable age she rejected her fathers arrangement for a bridegroom and insisted on living a monastic life. Her father agreed but sought to make her life as unpleasant as possible. For a period of time and through divine intervention, Kuan-Yin was able to persevere but eventually was strangled to death at the request of her father.  Outraged by her death, a Buddha appeared to her soul in a vision with a Peach of Immortality to eat, then, ordered the God of Epidemics to afflict her father with an incurable disease. Hearing of her fathers plight, she went to him and plucked out her eyes and cut off her hands for his cure. Grateful for her medicine her father ordered the image of daughter complete with eyes and hand be sculpted into a statue; but, his request was misunderstood and the statue was sculpted with one thousand eyes and one thousand hands. This is how Kuan-Yin came to be known as the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin who has a thousand arms and a thousand eyes, great in mercy and great in compassion.