Quan Am Thi Kinh - Sources for Chinese versions of Kwan-Yin
From: Jo
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 1:35 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
X-posted from the risa-l list, with permission from author.
Someone here might be able to send her the information.
Joanna Kirkpatrick
Visual Anthropology
_____________________________
On Behalf Of Reiko Ohnuma
Reiko.Ohnuma@Dartmouth.EDU
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2012 7:09 AM
Risa-L:
I have received this query from an historian of medieval Europe. If anyone
is aware of an Indian origin for the story he describes, please contact me
off-list.
Here is the query:
"I have come across an Annamite story recorded by a French colonial
administrator in Vietnam & I was wondering if it is of Indian origin. It is
the story of a woman who leaves her marriage and nasty mother in law, enters
a male monastery but is harassed by the monks. She then enters a second male
monastery dressed as a man.
A village girl falls in love with him and enters his cell & has sex with
another monk who happened to be there instead of with him. She then accuses
him of impregnating her. When the child is weaned it is given to her at the
monastery. One night she prays to Guilin (? not sure I remember the goddess
correctly) and is overheard by the abbot who then realises that the monk is
a woman but keeps silent to prevent a scandal. She dies soon after and her
sex is then revealed. I have come across a very similar story in Late
Antique Christian hagiography & wondered if it was an Indian tale that moved
both west to the Mediterranean and east to Annam. I would be most grateful
if you could help identify it."
Thanks,
Reiko Ohnuma
Dartmouth College
<Reiko.Ohnuma@Dartmouth.EDU>
----------
From: Tran, Ben
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 2:41 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hi Diane and Joanna,
The Vietnamese tale is Quan Âm Th? Kính. Composed in Nôm (786 lines, l?c bát), the earliest Vietnamese version dates back to the 19th century (though there’s some debate about this), and the earliest qu?c ng? version is credited to Nguy?n Van Vinh, published In 1911. The Chinese version is Kuan Yin, and the older, Indian version is that of the Sanskrit Avalokitesvara. The narrative’s circulation through Asia is quite a storied one—with various iterations. Of the many interesting things about this, the main figure in the Sanskrit version is usually male, while female (again, usually) in the Chinese and Vietnamese versions.
Hope this helps,
Ben Tran
Asian Studies & English
Vanderbilt University
----------
From: Jo <jkirk@spro.net>
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 5:09 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Ben Tran,
Can you say more about both the Chinese and the Indian versions. So far here, we only have their deity names. If it is a storied circulation, can you offer any publications on this tale?
Thanks
Joanna K.
VA
----------
From: Lisa Nguyen
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 5:26 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thich Nhat Hanh retold the story of Quan Am Thi Kinh in his latest publication, "The Novice: A Story of True Love."
Here's a link to the LA Times' review of the book: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/04/entertainment/la-ca-thich-nhat-hahn-20110904
lisa
--------------------------------
Thu Phuong Lisa H. Nguy?n ???
Archivist/Curator, Asia Collections
Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University
----------
From: harry aveling
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 5:32 PM
To: vsg washington <vsg@u.washington.edu>
A recent telling of the story is Thich Nhat Hanh's The Novice; A Story of True Love (HarperOne, New York 2011, 105 pages plus appendices including a note on the sources of "the legend").
An easy and compassionate read.
Harry Aveling
Translation and Interpreting Studies,
Monash University, Vic. 3800,
Australia.
----------
From: Jo
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 6:31 PM
To: Lisa Nguyen <lisa.nguyen@stanford.edu>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The LAT review says:
“The true story upon which "The Novice" is based has become part of Vietnamese folklore. “
Question: How does anyone know that this is based on a true story? So far, we know it’s part of folklore. Nobody has provided any evidence for it being a true story.
This assertion of alleged “truth” is interesting, since the person who originally posted about it, Prof. Reiko Ohnuma at Dartmouth, said that,
“I have come across a very similar story in Late Antique Christian hagiography & wondered if it was an Indian tale that moved both west to the Mediterranean and east to Annam.”
Anyone?
Joanna K.
VA
----------
From: harry aveling <haveling@hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 6:43 PM
To: vsg washington <vsg@u.washington.edu>
A similar story is told of the Zen Master Hakuin:
Is That So?
The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life.
A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.
This made her parents very angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.
In great anger the parents went to the master. "Is that so?" was all he would say.
After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbors and everything else the little one needed.
A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth - that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.
The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back again.
Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: "Is that so?
Harry Aveling
----------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 6:49 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
You should not rely on reviews! Thich Nhat Hanh recounts this folk tale as a story of True love, not a true story of love. I have yet to meet any Vietnamese who believes it is a true story.
Googling Quan Am Thi Kinh actually brings up the text by Thich Nhat Hanh, originally produced in 1996. But as Ben Tran mentioned, it is a folk-tale, not an original story by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Wikipedia has a long article on Guanyin, from its origins as the male Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara to his transformation in China into the female Bodhisattva Guanyin (also known as the Goddess of Mercy) around the tenth century. There are many versions of the story of Guanyin, but none close to Quan Am thi Kinh.
Guanyin or Guanshiyin (Quan The Am) is often depicted as the Guanyin of the thousand arms.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
----------
From: Jo
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 7:04 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Well.......It should be clear that I don't rely on reviews from the questions that I raised about that assertion, followed by my addition of evidence from EU late antiquity! GuanYin and Avalokiteshvara don't figure in this particular narrative.
Joanna K.
VA
----------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 7:08 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
So what was the point of this passage and of the question you posed?
>>The LAT review says:
“The true story upon which "The Novice" is based has become part of Vietnamese folklore. “
Question: How does anyone know that this is based on a true story? So far, we know it’s part of folklore. Nobody has provided any evidence for it being a true story.>>
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
------------------------
From: Mike High
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 11:28 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
As far as books on the evolution of the many Chinese versions of the tale, I can recommend two in particular:
• The transition from the male Avalokitesvera in India to the female froms of Kwan-Yin is described in: Kwan Yin, the Chinese transformation of Avalokitesìvara, Chün-fang Yü, Columbia University Press; 2000.
• Wilt L. Idema compares the Kwan-Yin story to the hagiographies of female saints in the introduction to Personal Salvation and Filial Piety; Two Precious Scroll Narratives of Guanyin and Her Acolytes, University of Hawai’i Press, 2008.
There are many manifestations of Kwan-yin in Chinese lore; over 30 by the time of the T’ang Dynasty, if I recall. The most prominent Chinese version tells of the princess who defies her father’s plans for her marriage, as he had for her older sisters. She retires to live at a monastery, the father has the monastery destroyed, but later, when he is ill, she gives up her eyes and her hands to save him.
This “princess of marvellous goodness” (Miao-shan, Quan Âm Di?u Thiên) Is the one worshipped at the Chùa Huong Tích at the top of H?ng Linh mountain in Hà Tinh province. (Quite a hike, but much nicer than theChùa Huong ordeal that has been prepared for western tourists.) Somewhere, I recall, it is claimed that the Chùa Huong site was created by one of the Trinh lords through the influence of a concubine who had come fromHà Tinh.
There is a 19th-century version of the Quan Âm Di?u Thiên story in the History of Buddhism in Vietnam, edited by Nguy?n Tài Thu, which dates it to the reign of T? Ð?c.
I’ve been assuming that the version In which a faithful wife is rejected by her suspicious husband and then falsely accused of fathering a child while disguised In a monastery (Quan Âm Th? Kính) is uniquely Vietnamese, but there may be variants in China.
:: Mike High
????
Great Falls, VA
USA
----------
From: Nu-Anh Tran
Date: Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 5:55 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear list,
I was wondering if there are any textual connections between this folktale and the Buddhist tradition in Korea. When I first heard this folktale as a little kid and and then read the hat cheo opera in high school (at home, not in school), I remember learning that the story takes place in Korea because Quan Âm was born as a Korean woman in one of her/his many lives... Of course, the scenes rather resemble the northern Vietnamese countryside. A quick internet search shows that I'm not the only one that associates the tale with Korea yet is unable to offer any evidence for it. I have no expertise in this whatsoever, but I'd love to hear what others have to say.
Cheers,
Nu-Anh Tran
Asian University for Women
Chittagong, Bangladesh
----------
From: William Noseworthy
Date: Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 6:06 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear All,
After reading this discussion with interest, Mike High's comments have
reminded me of another work of Idema's on the classic narrative of
Liang Shiangbo and Zhu Yingtai, which dates to the Tang dynasty by
Idema's argument.
While the stories are not directly parallel, there are similarities in
the tropes of the "gender bending."
Certain elements also reminded me of Ka So Lieng's Vietnamese
translations of Bahnar (?) Tru?ng Ca from t?nh Phú Yên.
Finally, similar plot arks can be found in Nguy?n Th? Thu Vân's PhD
thesis in Van H?c Vi?t Nam: Kh?o Sát Truy?n C? Dân T?c Cham.
While it seems obvious that we ought to think of the advantages of
Buddhist cultural overlays stemming from the Mahayana tradition, a
recent discussion with DD Waters reminds me that we can also find
similar tropes and plot arcs in Africa as well. If we take the
macrocosmic view, we would probably trace these origins further off
than the Indian ocean. If we take the microcosmic, I wonder how many
of these literary tropes might be traced or drawn into connection with
local pre-Buddhist or non-Buddhist traditions
This has had me thinking...
Thanks so much for the lovely thread!
Ever the best,
Billy
--
William B. Noseworthy,
PhD, c. MA 2011
UW-Madison
----------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 6:29 AM
To: Nu-Anh Tran <tran_n_a@yahoo.com>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Nu Anh
The Vietnamese wikipedia entry for Quan Am Thi Kinh does state that she was Korean.
There are two putative authors, both from the 19th century. It is most likely, however, that they based their work on a folk tale that was already in wide circulation, as was the case for Viet Dien U Linh Tap (1329) and Linh Nam Chich Quai (late 14th century) or the Tale of Kieu (we still don't know which version Nguyen Du picked up in his trip to China). So we don't know how Kinh acquired her Korean identity.
Interestingly, there are versions of the Guanyin story that are specfic to Fujian where many Chinese immigrants to Vietnam originated. But they don't include gender bending.
Hue Tam Ho Tai
----------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 6:46 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Liang Shanbo Zhu Yingtai was made into a very popular film that was shown in Vietnam in the1960s. Another Chinese gender-bending story is that of Meng Lichun (Manh Le Quan), made into a film but more recently. The story was translated into Vietnamese in the early 20th century and was one of my grandmother's favorites. It became a staple of cai luong theater.
Hue Tam Ho Tai