Note 27 — Chapter XIV · Creation Myths and the God and Goddess Cults

One of the holy beings referred to in China as a “Poosa” is Kwan-yin, the so-called “goddess of mercy”. Dr. Joseph Edkins27 says that “this divinity is represented sometimes as male, at others as female.… She is often represented with a child in her arms, and is then designated the giver of children. Elsewhere she is styled the ‘Kwan-yin who saves from the eight forms of suffering’ or ‘of the southern sea’, or ‘of the thousand arms’, &c. She passes through various metamorphoses, which give rise to a variety in names.”