Yet there are interesting remnants ofthe old religious ideas; for instance the island of Pootoo the gate tower of the main monastery is dedicated the "Mistress of Heaven," Tien Nou. The old gods have been enlisted 48 the lower classes of the spiritual erarehy of the Buddhist universe and they have directed the broad slreatn of religious preception of the Masses (o be incorporated into Budd sin and its philosophical spiritually Amongst the many legends coming tom this stream of religious feeling and winding themselves round the figure of the Buddhist Madonna, the legend of the "Miao Shan" (Miracuously Good One) being a previous and older form of the Kuan Yin, is of special interest, It appears in the long Shan chapter of the "Sutra of {he Previous Barthly Pilgrimage of the Great Goddess of Mercy Kuan hin Yin Bodhisattva," the first print of which did not, $0 far as we know, sopeer earlier than in the 17th century, "The qualities Tatze Tapel {Great Loving and Merciful one in Sanserit, -Mahamaltel—Mahakaruna)
strongly emphasized, itt, characteristic feature of this legend is that it comprises nearly all Mevious details and' statements of {extvooks of native. and Buddhist ition about the Madonna and her tage in a most wonderful manner.;, A2e0tding to this legend Miao Shan Buddhism ped mountains trusterred to the island of Pootoo,
he "Holy Tana and ly the conte the cult of the Madonna, To me treats Tegend "and to analyse portant scientific task, a ferent relations is therefore Moly Mountain Istand the name of the Island of Pootoo ich loathe why oka at"Tow tae one unity—is called the holy Mountain Island Potalaka, is taken from 'a mountain in Southern India having, the same name, upon which Avalokitesvara's (Kuan Yin) first inearnation took place, The Palace Mountain of the Dalat Lama in Lhasa has also the same name since he also is considered to be an incarnation of the same sublime being. The whole island "surfed" by the seas, forms 'a mythological world in itself.
The strange shape of the rocks which resemble petrified incarnations of saints (Patriarch Bodhidharma) and like fabulous animals (two giant turtles), the nomenclature of the' mountains (for instance Luang Shan, Incense Mountain, following the text of the legend) and of the monasteries Indeed are guiding the human mind in such a way that the words "Enter the Contemplation" being engraved fon stone or written and painted on the walls, become reality.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.