Iconic depictions
Marici has
historically taken the following depictions
§ As a
beautiful woman sitting/standing on an open lotus, the lotus itself
sometimes perched on the back of seven sows.
§ As a
ferocious demon perched on the back of a boar
§ As a
multi-armed woman with a different weapon in each hand standing on the back of
a boar.
She has been
depicted with one, three, five or six faces and two, six, eight, ten or twelve
arms; three eyes; in her many-faced manifestations one of her faces is that of
a sow.
Symbols
§ sow
§ lotus
Origins
The origins of
Marici are obscure, however she appears to be an amalgamation of Hindu, Iranian, and non-Aryan[citation
needed] antecedents
spanning 1500 years. She is however identified as aBuddhist "goddess" of light, Marici.
In China
Marici
with eight-arms, four faces riding on a boar.
Marici in China is
sometimes worshiped as both a Buddhist and Taoist deity
where she is known as Dipper
Mother (Chinese: 斗母元君; pinyin:Dǒumǔ Yuánjūn) or "Dou
Mu", who is also called Marici
Deva (Chinese: 摩利支天菩萨; pinyin: Mólìzhītiān
Púsà) by some worshippers. Most often she 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.
In Chinese
Buddhism, especially in the south where Tantric Buddhism hardly penetrated, she is often
confused with Cundī. Among Chinese
Buddhists she is worshiped as goddess of light and as the guardian of all
nations, whom she protects from the fury of war. [1]
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.[2] 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 still
worshiped today in Taoist temples like the White Cloud
Temple and the Tou Mu Kung
Temple which has both
Taoist and Buddhist influences.
Bujin
Marishi-ten
Multi-armed
Marishi on one boar.
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 a 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 the mantra of Marici at sunrise to achieve victory on the battlefield[citation
needed], or would invoke Marici by other means to
attain magical powers that would assist them in battle. Since Marici means
"light" or mirage, she was regarded as the deification of
mirages and was thus invisible or difficult to see and was thereby accordingly
invoked to escape the notice of one's enemies.[citation
needed]
[Edo
period
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).
As a
Yaksha General
Marici has also
sometimes included as one of the Twelve Heavenly Generals associated with Bhaiṣajyaguru, the Buddha of Medicine.
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