[Buddha-l] Is Guanyin Catholic?

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Piya Tan schreef:

> Buddha-Lites,
>
> On February 16, 2005 the Ricci Institute presented "Guadalupe and 
> Guanyin: Images of
> the Madonna in Mexico and China" as part of its ongoing public lecture 
> series. At this
> event, two keynote speakers, Ms. Lauren Arnold and Prof. Tom Lucas, 
> S.J. invited the
> audience to explore the impact of missionary Christianity on 
> traditional cultures in pre-
> modern Mexico and China through a visual art history presentation. As 
> the edited
> transcripts reveal, this often-turbulent spiritual contact with 
> European Christian culture and
> imagery resulted in the emergence of two very important ethnographic 
> versions of the
> Virgin Mary: Guadalupe and Guanyin. In the presentations below, Arnold 
> and Lucas trace
> the evolution of these compelling Marian images from medieval European 
> prototypes
> overlaid upon indigenous folk goddesses to fully developed Christian 
> devotional images of
> distinct and moving ethnicity.
>
> http://www.usfca.edu/ricci/events/lucas.pdf
>
> Is Arnold saying that Guanyin is a copy of Virgin Mary, or is it the 
> other way around, or perhaps they arose independently?
>
> Some local Guanyin Buddhists are somewhat confounded when they read 
> this article.
>
> Any expert or helpful comments on this?
>
>
I'm not an expert, but you don't need to be to answer your first 
question: Lucas, is talking about a fusion and a fusion implies two 
independly existing things. Accordig to my info Guanyin is a trafo of 
Mañjusri and Mary a trafo of Isis. So they are not the same, but gods 
are like companies, they can split and come together at will.


-- 
Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms
weblog http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950