Honolulu Star Bulletin. Friday, February 22, 1957 - Clarice B. Taylor's "Tales about Hawaii"
If your Chinese grandpa was a scholar, he would have probably have told you that both T'aoism and Buddhism are a "way of life."
Buddhism, the scholar says, is divided into two schools - the big cartwheel school which prevails from India to japan and the small cartwheel school which spread through Burma, Siam, Indochina and Sumatra.
The big wheel teachings are based upon the sayings of Buddha after he sat under the Bohdi tree and received enlightenment.
The small wheel teachings are based upon the sayings of Buddha before he received enlightenment.
EVANGELICAL MONK
Big cartwheel teachings where brought by a Buddhist monk to China about 420 A.D. and the Buddhists reached their greatest influence in the seventh century during the Tun dynasty.
Buddhist monks won over many T'aoists by preaching the doctrine of incarnation and so absorbing many of the T'aoist gods into Buddhism under new names.
Buddhist monks said that the T'aoist Triad of gods were the previous incarnations of the Buddhist Triad of Three Precious Ones.
The Triad consists of Shih Chia Fo (Shakya in India), who is the Lord Buddha - he who attained perfection through enlightenment; Omit'o Fo (Amita in India), the law, and Ju Lai Fo (Tathagata), the priesthood.
The monks found the Chinese has a popular goddess Tou Mu, The Bushell mother who resides in the North Pole star and with her nine sons (stars of the Great Bear) governs the universe and controls the books of life and death.
GODDESS OF LIGHT
Buddhists recognized her as the Indian Maritchi, the goddess of light who holds aloft the moon and sun and protects the world against war.
They pictured her seated on a lotus throne with three eyes and 18 arms each holding some precious object.
Other Buddhist monks said she was Kuan Yin, the female incarnation of the Bodhisavatta Samantabhadra (great compassion) who sits on the left of the Lord Buddha as one of the two nearest perfection.
Samantabhadra is Ju Lai Fo of the Buddhist Triad of Three Precious Ones.
NEXT: Chung Kuei
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