One day, the Goddess Quan Yen told Monkey that the Monk Tripitaka will set him free and Monkey will join him on a pilgrimage from China to India.
The priests catch the snake and prepare to kill her, but are stopped by the goddess Kwan Im, who tells the stunned pursuers that the snake is pregnant and thus must not be killed.
His Buddhist name "Zhu Wuneng", given by Bodhisattva Guanyin, means "pig (reincarnated) who is aware of ability," or "pig who rises to power", a reference to the fact that he values himself so much as to forget his own grisly appearance.
Guanyin |
Transnational Chinese cybersects include the group commonly known in the West as Falun Gong (法轮功), Zhong Gong (中华养生益智功), and the Taiwan-based group founded by Suma Ching Hai, commonly referred to in the PRC as Guanyin Famen (观音法门), but rendered in English by the Ching Hai World Society as Quan Yin.
Other major attractions include dioramas of scenes from Journey to the West, Fengshen Bang, The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars, Legend of the White Snake, Romance of the Three Kingdoms; statues of mythological figures such as the Laughing Buddha and Guanyin, and historical personages such as Jiang Ziya, Su Wu and Lin Zexu; the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, and others.
Some of the looks and clothing drawn carries certain similarities with murals found in Ajanta Caves (India) or Dunhuang (China.) Also observed are Tang and Inidian flavors of the Bosatsu and Kannon drawn on the sides of the Amida.
Nearby are the Maijishan Grottoes, filled with thousands of Buddhist sculptures representing figures such as Buddha and the original male form of Guanyin, produced between the Wei and Song dynasties by monks travelling along the road and by local Buddhists.