Kuan Yin

Guan Yin is the bodhisattva of compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists, usually as a female. She is also known as the Chinese Bodhisattva of Compassion.In Japanese, Guanyin is pronounced Kannon or more formally Kanzeon ; the spelling Kwannon, based on a pre-modern pronunciation, is sometimes seen. In Korean, the Bodhisattva is called Gwan-eum or Gwanse-eum, In Thai, the name is called Kuan Eim (กวนอิม) or Prah Mae Kuan Eim (พระแม่กวนอิม),and in Vietnamese, the name is Quan Âm or Quan Thế Âm Bồ Tát.
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Noun
1. (Buddhism) a female Bodhisattva; often called goddess of mercy and considered an aspect of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara; identified with Japanese Kwannon
(synonym) Kwan-yin
(hypernym) Chinese deity
(classification) Buddhism

[Chinese] The Chinese bodhisattva (Buddhistic prophet) to whom childless women turn for help. He manifests himself in any conceivable form wherever a being needs his help, especially when someone is menaced by water, demons, fire, or sword. Kuan-yin, whose name means "Who Contemplates the [Supplicating] Sound of the World", along with Samantabhadra, Kshitigarbha (Di-cang) and Manjushri (Wen-shu), is one of the four great bodishattvas of Buddhism. Guan-yin is identified as the male bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, also known as Chenresi in Tibetan, "One Who Hears the Cries of the World". In more recent representation, Guan-yin is often depicted with distinct feminine features, an effect of Taoistic and Tantric influences from the 8th to 10th century. She is often depicted as the Thousand Armed, Thousand Eyed bodhisattva, and later in a form inspired by the Virgin Mary figures from the West. In many representations, Guan-yin has a child on one arm or appears in the company of a maiden who holds a ...
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Kwan-Yin, Kuan-Yin (Chinese) The Chinese Buddhist goddess of compassion, the female aspect of Kwan-shai-yin, referred to in the Stanzas of Dzyan as the triple of Kwan-shai-yin, residing in Kwan-yien-tien, "because in her correlations, metaphysical and cosmical, she is the 'Mother, the Wife and the Daughter' of the Logos, just as in the later theological translations she became 'the Father, Son and (the female) Holy Ghost' -- the Sakti or Energy -- the Essence of the three. Thus in the Esotericism of the Vedantins, Daiviprakriti, the Light manifested through Eswara, the Logos, is at one and the same time the Mother and also the Daughter of the Logos or Verbum of Parabrahmam; while in that of the trans-Himalayan teachings it is -- in the hierarchy of allegorical and metaphysical theogony -- 'the Mother' or abstract, ideal matter, Mulaprakriti, the Root of Nature . . . a correlation of Adi-Bhuta, manifested in the Logos, Avolokiteshwara; and from the purely occult and Cosmical, Fohat, the 'Son of the Son,' the androgynous energy resulting from this 'Light of the Logos' " (SD 1:136-7).
Kwan-yin is the Chinese counterpart from one point of view of the Egyptian Isis, the Hebrew Bath-Qol -- the "daughter of the (Divine) Voice" -- and of the Hindu Vach. "She is male and female ad libitum, as Eve is with Adam. And she is a form of Aditi -- the principle higher than Ether -- in Akasa, the synthesis of all the forces in Nature; thus Vach and Kwan-Yin are both the magic potency of Occult sound in Nature and Ether -- which 'Voice' calls forth Sien-Tchan, the illusive form of the Universe out of Chaos and the Seven Elements" (SD 1:137).

The Chinese manifestation of Avalokiteshvara , the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Although originally depicted as male, he gradually became represented as female. She appears to all who need her help, especially those threatened by water, demons, sword or fire. Childless women often turn to her for help.