Xiao shi bai yi Guanyin pu sa song ying er xia sheng bao juan 銷釋白衣觀音菩薩送嬰兒下生寶卷 [Explanatory Precious Scroll of the White-Robed Bodhisattva Guanyin Who Comes into the World Bringing Children]

Five-page (or panel) woodcut illus. of the deity Avalokiteśvara holding a baby and surrounded by her attendants & three full-page woodcut talismans with text in Vol. I; another full-page woodcut of the deity on final page of Vol. II. 202; 188 pages (or panels). Two vols. Narrow small folio in accordion format (380 x 130 mm.), upper covers of orig. (?) multi-colored silk brocade with metallic thread over heavy boards, orig. gold-stamped title labels on upper covers, lower boards covered with silk. [China]: early Qing?



A "precious scroll" (baojuan 寶卷) in accordion format by late-Ming Daoist Liu Douxuan. Liu and his father, Liu Xiangshan 劉香山, who were from Henan in central China, authored several precious scrolls. A genre of popular religious literature that originated in the 16th century, "precious scrolls were designed for a lay audience, which was often predominantly made up of women" (Yü, Kuan-yin, 317-18). Our scroll represents one moment in the history of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara as a female deity associated with childbirth.


In the Buddhist scriptures, Avalokiteśvara takes on various male and female forms, but the deity was generally depicted as male. In East Asia, however, Avalokiteśvara turned into a female deity, Guanyin 觀音, to whom one prayed in hope of an heir. In popular Chinese religion as it developed in the late Ming period, including in this scroll, Guanyin became associated with the Venerable Mother of a new kind of sectarian religion. "One noticeable characteristic of the sectarian religions was their attraction to women. During the Ch'ing [Qing] period, sectarian religions not only attracted many women followers, but often were led by women" (Yü, Kuan-yin, 461).


This scroll tells the story of a couple who pray to the "white-robed mother," Guanyin, for a child. The couple eventually have two children and are able to keep them through pious acts. Believers are told to recite the text of the scroll, and have others recite it, for long-lived sons and daughters, protection from disasters, and deliverance of ancestors from posthumous suffering. It is said that the childless will receive children through worship of the White-robed Bodhisattva.


The scroll was first printed in the Wanli period (1573-1620), but our copy does not carry a date. The title on the outside cover is different in the edition reprinted in facsimile in Baojuan: chuji 寶卷：初集 [Precious Scrolls: First Installment] (Vol. 12), but the images and text appear to be of the same edition as our scroll. The editors do not provide a date for the text. All known copies are dated only approximately. Zhongguo baojuan zongmu 中國寶卷總目 [Comprehensive Catalogue of Chinese Precious Scrolls] lists two editions. One is "Ming-period, two-volume version in sutra binding" 明刊折本，二冊, noted to have been owned or described by Fu Xihua 傅惜華 and Li Shiyu (1922-2010). Li, in his Baojian zonglu [Comprehensive Catalogue of Precious Scrolls], simply writes "Ming period" (p. 53).
The other is an "early Qing-period, two-volume version in sutra binding" 清初刊折本，二冊 (Sawada, Hōkan no kenkyū, 118-20). We are unable to date our copy with any greater precision. It is probably a Qing-period printing.


Fine copies. A bit of marginal worming and a little marginal staining.



References


Baojuan: chuji 寶卷：初集. Vol. 12. Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1994.


Che Xilun 車錫倫. Zhongguo baojuan zongmu 中國寶卷總目. Beijing: Beijing yanshan chubanshe, 2000.


Li Shiyu 李世瑜. Baojian zonglu 寶卷綜錄. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961.


Li, Thomas Shiyu, and Naquin, Susan. "The Baoming Temple: Religion and the Throne in Ming and Qing China." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 48.1 (1988): 131-88.


Sawada Mizuho 澤田瑞穂. Hōkan no kenkyū 寶卷の硏究. Tokyo : Kokusho Kankōkai, 1975.


Yü, Chün-Fang. Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.