Kidneys

(賢)

One of the Five Viscera (五臓), viz.: heart, liver, stomach, lungs, and kidneys, which represent the emotional feelings. They are reverenced as one of the EIGHT TREASURES (q. v.), or Eight Precious Organs of Buddha, and are sometimes designated as yú (魚), when they symbolise the sacred FISH (q. v.) of the Buddhists.

The kidneys, according to the Chinese, correspond to the element water; they have the office of producing ingenuity and power. Disease is supposed to arise in consequence of the fanciful accordance between the viscera, the pulse, metals, earth, colour, sound, etc., being destroyed; the remedies given are intended to restore the natural harmony between these organs and their corresponding elements, which being accomplished the health will be recovered (vide MEDICINE).

Kingfisher

(翠鳥)

The kingfisher is found in many parts of China. The commonest species is Halcyon smynensis, and in this connection it may be interesting to note en passant that, according to western mythology, it was fabled by the ancients to build its nest on the surface of the sea, and to have the power of calming the troubled waves during its period of incubation; hence the phrase “halcyon days.”

Among other species of kingfishers, which have their habitat in China, may be mentioned the black-capped kingfisher, Halcyon pileatus (秦椒嘴), and the pied kingfisher, Ceryle varia (懷魚童), a native of Foochow.

The gay-coloured plumage of this bird is much appreciated by the Chinese, who employ the feathers in appliqué work on silver or copper. “Inlaid” kingfisher ware is chiefly produced in Canton and Peiping. Head-dresses, combs, brooches, etc., are fashioned by alternating azure, ultramarine and sapphire blues with filagree flowers and dragons interspersed with artificial pearls and enamel on a metal foundation, the result being somewhat similar to the plumagery of the Aztecs, the chief objection being a certain lack of durability. The bright natural colourings of the feathers are also employed in beautiful landscape and floral designs for pictures and screens.

The plumage of the kingfisher is said to vie in colour with the sky and the blue-green neutral tints of the distant hills, and is a synonym for gaudy raiment, especially that worn by the fair sex, while the bird is regarded as a popular emblem of beauty.

Kuan Yin

(觀音)

Sanskrit, Padma-pâni, or “Born of the Lotus.” Her Chinese title signifies, “She who always observes or pays attention to sounds,” i. e., she who hears prayers. “The Chinese Goddess of Mercy, sometimes represented in white clothes with a child in her arms, and worshipped by those who desire offspring, corresponds to the Avalôkitês vara of Buddhism, and in some respects to the Lucina of the Romans. Also known as 大慈大悲 ‘great mercy, great pity’; 救苦救難 ‘salvation from misery, salvation from woe’; 自在 ‘self-existent’; 千手千眼 ‘thousand arms and thousand eyes,’ etc. But down to the early part of the 12th century Kuan Yin was represented as a man.”¹⁴⁵ She is also called the Goddess of the Southern Sea—or Indian Archipelago—(南侮菩薩) and has been compared to the Virgin Mary.

The image of this divinity is generally placed on a special altar at the back of the great SHÂKYAMUNI BUDDHA (q. v.), behind a screen, and facing the north door, in the second hall of the Buddhist monastery. Kuan Yin is also worshipped by the Taoists, and they imitate the Buddhists in their descriptions of this deity, speaking in the same manner of her various metamorphoses, her disposition to save the lost, her purity, wisdom, and marvel-working power.

“Those who seek relief from pains and misfortunes turn to the ‘Goddess of Mercy.’ Her name was Miáo Shān, and she was the daughter of an Indian Prince. It is related that she was a pious follower of Buddha. In order to convert her blind father, she visited him transfigured as a stranger, and informed him that were he to swallow an eyeball of one of his children, his sight would be restored. His children would not consent to the necessary sacrifice, whereupon the future goddess created an eye which her parent swallowed and he regained his sight. She then persuaded her father to join the Buddhist priesthood by pointing out the folly and vanity of a world in which children would not even sacrifice an eye for the sake of a parent. There are temples all over China dedicated to this goddess, and she is worshipped in every family.”¹⁴⁶ This divinity is worshipped by women in South China more than in the North, on the 19th day of the 2nd, 6th, and 9th moons. Worshippers ask for sons, wealth, and protection.

The island of Pûtuó (普陀山), in the Chusan Archipelago, is sacred to the Buddhists, the worship of Kuan Yin being its most prominent feature on account of the fact that the Goddess is said to have resided there for nine years. The full name of the island is Pûduóluògā (普陀洛咖), from Mount Pataloka, whence the Goddess, in her transformation as Avalokita, looks down upon mankind. There are nearly a hundred monasteries and temples on the island, with over a thousand monks.

“The most usual and popular representation of this Goddess is a beautiful and gracious woman, who holds a child in her arms and wears a rosary around her neck. She is the Chinese equivalent of India’s Avalokita, and when represented in that form, she is shown with several heads, and four, eighteen or forty hands, with which she strives to alleviate the sufferings of the unhappy.”According to one legend she is said to be the daughter of a sovereign of the Zhōu Dynasty, who “strenuously opposed her wish to be a nun, and was so irritated by her refusal to marry that he put her to humiliating tasks in the convent, no doubt that she might see the life for herself. This means of coercion failed, and her father then ordered her to be executed for disobedience to his wishes. But the executioner, who was evidently a man of tender heart and some forethought, probably brought it about that the sword which was to descend upon her should break into a thousand pieces. Her father thereupon ordered her to be stifled. As the story goes, she forthwith went to Hell, but on her arrival the flames were quenched and flowers burst into bloom. Yama, the presiding officer, looked on in dismay at what seemed to be the summary abolition of his post, and in order to keep his position he sent her back to life again. Carried in the fragrant heart of a lotus flower she went to the island of Potala, near Ningpo. One day her father fell ill and according to a Chinese custom, not so rare as one might suppose, she cut the flesh from her arms that it might be made into medicine. A cure was effected, and in his gratitude her father ordered her statue to be made,‘with completely-formed arms and eyes.’ Owing to a misunderstanding of the orders the sculptor carved the statue with many heads and many arms, and so it remains to this day.”¹⁴⁷

There are said to be thousands of different incarnations or manifestations of this divinity, who is generally dressed in beautiful, white, flowing robes, with a white hood gracefully draped over the top of the head, but the Lamaistic form is often entirely naked, with or without a child in the arms. Occasionally she is depicted as a woman with small feet, sometimes as a man, and frequently as riding a mythological animal known as the hôu (吼), which somewhat resembles a Buddhist lion, and symbolises the divine supremacy exercised by Kuan Yin over the forces of nature (vide THREE GREAT BEINGS).