The Secret Doctrine by H.
P.
Blavatsky -- Vol.
1 [[Vol.
1, Page]] 470 [[This page continued from previous section ]] § XV.
ON KWAN-SHI-YIN AND KWAN-YIN.
L IKE Avalokiteshwara, Kwan-shi-yin has passed through several transformations, but it is an error to say of him that he is a modern invention of the Northern Buddhists, for under another appellation he has been known from the earliest times.
The Secret Doctrine teaches that "He who is the first to appear at Renovation will be the last to come before Re-absorption (pralaya)." Thus the logoi of all nations, from the Vedic Visvakarma of the Mysteries down to the Saviour of the present civilised nations, are the "Word" who was "in the beginning" (or the reawakening of the energising powers of Nature) with the One A BSOLUTE.
Born of Fire and Water, before these became distinct elements, IT was the "Maker" (fashioner or modeller) of all things; "without him was not anything made that was made"; "in whom was life, and the life was the light of men"; and who finally may be called, as he ever has been, the Alpha and the Omega of manifested Nature.
"The great Dragon of Wisdom is born of Fire and Water, and into Fire and Water will all be re-absorbed with him" ( Fa-Hwa-King ) .
As this Bodhisatva is said "to assume any form he pleases" from the beginning of a Manvantara to its end, though his special birthday (memorial day) is celebrated according to the Kin-kwang-ming-King ("Luminous Sutra of Golden Light") in the second month on the nineteenth day, and that of "Maitreya Buddha" in the first month on the first day, yet the two are one.
He will appear as Maitreya Buddha, the last of the Avatars and Buddhas, in the seventh Race.
This belief and expectation are universal throughout the East.
Only it is not in the Kali yug , our present terrifically materialistic age of Darkness, the "Black Age," that a new Saviour of Humanity can ever appear.
The Kali yug is [[Vol.
1, Page]] 471 DISEASED IMAGINATION.
"l'Age d'Or" (!) only in the mystic writings of some French pseudo-Occultists.
(See "La Mission des Juifs.") Hence the ritual in the exoteric worship of this deity was founded on magic.
The Mantras are all taken from special books kept secret by the priests, and each is said to work a magical effect; as the reciter or reader produces, by simply chanting them, a secret causation which results in immediate effects.
Kwan-Shi-Yin is Avalokiteshwara, and both are forms of the seventh Universal Principle; while in its highest metaphysical character this deity is the synthetic aggregation of all the planetary Spirits, Dhyani Chohans.
He is the "Self-manifested;" in short, the "Son of the Father." Crowned with seven dragons, above his statue there appears the inscription Pu-Tsi-K'iun-ling, "the universal Saviour of all living beings." Of course the name given in the archaic volume of the Stanzas is quite different, but Kwan-Yin is a perfect equivalent.
In a temple of Pu'to, the sacred island of the Buddhists in China, Kwan-Shi-Yin is represented floating on a black aquatic bird ( Kala-Hansa ), and pouring on the heads of mortals the elixir of life, which, as it flows, is transformed into one of the chief Dhyani-Buddhas -- the Regent of a star called the "Star of Salvation." In his third transformation Kwan-Yin is the informing spirit or genius of Water.
In China the Dalai-Lama is believed to be an incarnation of Kwan-Shi-Yin, who in his third terrestrial appearance was a Bodhisattva, while the Teshu Lama is an incarnation of Amitabha Buddha, or Gautama.
It may be remarked en passant that a writer must indeed have a diseased imagination to discover phallic worship everywhere, as do the authors of "China Revealed" (McClatchey) and "Phallicism." The first discovers "the old phallic gods, represented under two evident symbols -- the Khan or Yang, which is the membrum virile , and the Kwan or Yin, the pudendum muliebre.
" (See " Phallicism ," p.
273.) Such a rendering seems the more strange as Kwan-Shi-Yin (Avalokiteswara) and Kwan-Yin, besides being now the patron deities of the Buddhist ascetics, the Yogis of Thibet, are the gods of chastity, and are, in their esoteric meaning, not even that which is implied in the rendering of Mr.
Rhys Davids' "Buddhism," (p.
202): "The name Avalokiteshwara .
.
.
means 'the Lord who looks down from on high.' "Nor is Kwan-Shi-Yin "the Spirit of the Buddhas present in the Church," but, literally interpreted, it means "the Lord that is seen," and in one sense, "the divine SELF perceived by Self" (the human) -- the Atman or seventh principle merged in the Universal, perceived by, or the object of perception to, Buddhi, the sixth principle or divine Soul in man.
In a still higher sense, Avalokiteshwara = Kwan-Shi-Yin, referred to as the seventh Universal principle, is the Logos [[Vol.
1, Page]] 472 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
perceived by the Universal Buddhi -- or Soul, as the synthetic aggregate of the Dhyani-Buddhas: and is not the "Spirit of Buddha present in the Church," but the omnipresent universal Spirit manifested in the temple of Kosmos or Nature.
This Orientalistic etymology of Kwan and Yin is on a par with that of "Yogini," which, we are told by Mr.
Hargrave Jennings, "is a Sanskrit word, in the dialects pronounced Yogi or Zogee (!), and is equivalent to Sena, and exactly the same as Duti or Duti-Ca' -- i.e.
, a sacred prostitute of the temple, worshipped as Yoni or Sakti" (p.
60).
"The books of morality," in India, "direct a faithful wife to shun the society of Yogini or females who have been adored as Sakti .
.
.
amongst the votaries of a most licentious description." Nothing should surprise us after this.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The passage narrates cosmic origin: 'Born of Fire and Water, before these became distinct elements, IT was the Maker (fashioner or modeller) of all things; without him was not anything made that was made,' presenting a clear origin narrative.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage maps a clear cascade from the One Absolute through the Logos/seventh Universal Principle down to the Dhyani Chohans (planetary Spirits) and their aggregations, forming a structured hierarchy of divine levels.
Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.
The esoteric interpretation of Kwan-Shi-Yin as 'the divine SELF perceived by Self' points to direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature as the meaning behind the exoteric worship.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage notes that 'The Mantras are all taken from special books kept secret by the priests' and that the esoteric meaning of the deity's name differs from its exoteric rendering, encoding inner truth beneath outer form.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The passage describes the directional process from the One Absolute through the Logos into manifested Nature ('the Alpha and the Omega of manifested Nature') and its eventual re-absorption, naming the staged descent of spirit into matter and its complementary return.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The passage explicitly identifies Kwan-Shi-Yin/Avalokiteshwara as 'the Logos perceived by the Universal Buddhi,' equating the seventh Universal Principle with the Word that was 'in the beginning' with the One Absolute, making the Logos the central theological identification of the entire section.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The passage explicitly maps the cosmic structure onto the human: 'the Atman or seventh principle merged in the Universal, perceived by, or the object of perception to, Buddhi, the sixth principle or divine Soul in man,' making the human a mirror of the cosmic Logos-Buddhi relationship.
The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.
The passage's core esoteric reading identifies the deity as 'the divine SELF perceived by Self (the human),' making the recognition of one's own Atman as the object of Buddhi's perception the liberating insight.
Form-mutability as a constitutional property of divine and preternatural beings — gods, heroes, spirits, and their human practitioners possessing inherent capacity to alter form across human, animal, plant, or elemental states. Loki and Odin's transformations in Norse, Math's pigs and Blodeuwedd's owl-shape and Pwyll's exchange with Arawn in the Mabinogion, the Greek Proteus, the Indian dasavatara, Vainamoinen's bird-flight in the Kalevala, Ovid's metamorphoses, the shamanic and witch's capacity for ritual form-change. Distinct from anthropomorphism (divine taking specific human form, single embodiment) in that anthropomorphism establishes a stable form whereas this concept establishes form's plurality and instability.
The passage's central theme is the deity's form-mutability: 'Kwan-shi-yin has passed through several transformations,' 'he is said to assume any form he pleases from the beginning of a Manvantara to its end,' and his third transformation as 'the informing spirit or genius of Water.'
Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).
The passage references the seventh principle (Atman) and sixth principle (Buddhi/divine Soul) as distinct levels within the human, implying a multi-principled structure of the human being.
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
The passage explicitly states that 'each [Mantra] is said to work a magical effect; as the reciter or reader produces, by simply chanting them, a secret causation which results in immediate effects,' directly asserting the causal-magical efficacy of spoken word.