As regular readers of my site know, in addition to martial arts, I also post occasional articles on Buddhism. A lot of things have been happening in my life recently on the spiritual side which I shall not relate in this blog but suffice to say that I recently discovered that I have an intimate connection with the Goddess Marici. In discovering this a lot of things seemed to make sense, with multiple connections, at many levels in my life. For instance she is both worshipped as a Taoist and Buddhist deity (which dovetails nicely with my own practice of internal martial arts and Japanese martial arts) and she is very popular in Japan as well as China. In her Taoist aspect of Tian Hou, she is worshipped in both Hong Kong and Taiwan. From the point of view of this blog Marishiten, as she is known in Japan was also the patron and protector of many samurai warriors before Zen became popular in Japan. White Cloud Temple in Beijing is very near to where the office of our joint-venture partner is located in Beijing. And she is intimately connected with the Shingon sect, which is the sect that oversees the 88 temple pilgrimage that I am undergoing in Shikoku in Japan.
For my readers here is a some information that is culled from Wikipedia and some other sites on the web.
Marishiten is the name of a Buddhist goddess representing an amalgamation of several Hindu antecedents, primarily the god Marici, who is considered to have been a son of Brahma or one of the ten patriarchs created by the first lawgiver Manu. The deity assumed female form on adoption into Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. In Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, Marici is a deva or bodhisattva associated with light and the sun. She is known as Molizhitian (摩利支天) or Molizhitian Pusa (摩利支天菩萨) in China and Marishi-ten (摩利支天) in Japan. She is one of the Twenty (or Twenty Four) Celestials (二十/二十四诸天). In Taoism, Marici is known under the epithet of the Dipper Mother (traditional Chinese: 斗母元君; pinyin: Dǒumǔ Yuánjūn).
China
Marici in China is worshiped as both a Buddhist and Taoist deity. She is highly revered in Esoteric Buddhism. Most often, she is depicted with three eyes in each of her four faces; with four arms on each side of her body. Two of her hands are held together, and the other six hold a sun, moon, bell, golden seal, bow, and halberd. She is either standing/sitting on top of a lotus or pig, or on a Lotus on top of seven pigs. She is celebrated on the 9th day of the 9th lunar month. Due to similar iconography, she is often confused with the Bodhisattva Cundī. Among Chinese Buddhists, she is worshiped as the goddess of light and as the guardian of all nations, whom she protects from the fury of war. In Taoism, Dou Mu remains a popular deity and is often referred to as Queen of Heaven (Chinese: 天后; pinyin: Tiān Hòu) and is widely worshiped as the Goddess of Beidou (the Chinese equivalent of Ursa Major except that it also includes 2 "attendant" stars). She is also revered as the mother of the Nine Emperor Gods who are represented by the nine stars in the Beidou constellation. Legend has it that one spring day a queen went to bath in a pond. Upon entering she suddenly felt "moved" and nine lotus buds rose from the pond. Each of these lotus buds opened to reveal a star which then became the Beidou constellation. She is worshiped today in Taoist temples like the White Cloud Temple and the Tou Mu Kung Temple which has both Taoist and Buddhist influences.
Japan
God / Goddess of prosperity, the warrior class, and entertainers in Japan. Depicted as a male or female warrior, often with three heads and multiple arms holding weapons, standing or sitting atop a sow or boar, or driving a chariot drawn by seven pigs. In Japan, this deity is also sometimes depicted as a beautiful female goddess of fortune standing or sitting on a lotus. In her female form, she is the consort of Dainichi Nyorai (Skt. = Vairocana), the Great Solar Buddha, although she is seldom depicted in yab-yum with him. In this role, she is the harbinger of Dainichi, the Goddess of Dawn, a personification of light, one identified with the blinding rays and fire of the rising sun, and thus with the power of invisibility and mirage. Marishiten’s powers of illusion were probably the main reason she was adopted as the tutelary deity of street magicians and entertainers. Her mount, the boar, “represents audacious advance without fear, a desirable quality for a warrior.”
An important deity in the Shingon and Tendai schools, Marici was adopted by the Bujin or Samurai in the 8th century CE as a protector and patron. While devotions to Marici predate Zen, they appear to be geared towards a similar meditative mode in order to enable the warrior to achieve a more heightened spiritual level. He lost interest in the issues of victory or defeat (or life and death), thus transcending to level where he became so empowered that he was freed from his own grasp on mortality. The end result was that he became a better warrior. The worship of Marici was to provide a way to achieve selflessness and compassion through Buddhist training by incorporating a passion for the mastery of the self. Samurai would invoke Marici at sunrise to achieve victory. Since Marici means "light" or mirage, she was invoked to escape the notice of one's enemies. She was also later worshipped in the Edo period as a goddess of wealth and prosperity by the merchant class, alongside Daikoku-ten (大黒天) and Benzaiten (弁財天) as part of a trio of "three deities" (santen 三天).
I have recently ordered a book called "The Buddhist Goddess Marishiten; A study of the evolution and impact of her cult on the Japanese Warrior" by David Avalon Hall (author of the Encyclopedia of Japanese Martial Arts - also reviewed on this blog). Will be happy to provide a review in the coming weeks.
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