Page 111 - Popular Deities of Chinese Buddhism (Illustrated) and Symbols

He is adored as the Master of Wisdom and Knowledge and is

more commonly seen to be seated in meditation on a golden-

maned lion which is also called the Lion rone. Sometimes the

golden-maned lion is replaced by a green lion which symbolises

the wild mind which can only be transformed by meditation.

e practice of meditation is therefore mandatory for all who are

keen to have a calm and subdued mind, and Wen-shu P’usa is

the Deity who can help them to overcome all their obstacles of

Dharma practice.

Wen-shu P’usa’s abode at the Wu-tai Mountain in Northern

China is the most important place of pilgrimage for his followers

and for all other energetic Buddhists as it is believed to be where

many Bodhisattvas gather. e Chinese people also address

him as the ‘Enlightener of the world’ as his task is known to be

to drive away falsehood and ignorance from the minds of men.

Although the ascent to the Wu-tai Shan is steep and difficult, yet

countless devotees have reached its top. e lure of making this

difficult pilgrimage is mainly due to devotion and also to asertain

the claims made by those who have been there that upon reach-

ing the mountain top temple of Wen-shu, one ‘feels a great sense

of tranquillity of the mind which cannot be described in words’.

ere have also been frequent claims by the more fortunate ones

that they had witnessed a strange and spectacular sight, that of

an unbelievable display of heavenly lights that appeared at cer-

tain nights like ‘rows of well lit lanterns floating across the vast

sky…’. Disbelievers may take this claim lightly and treat it as a

kind of hallucination suffered by the devotees’ minds as a result of

the strenous climb, the height of the mountain, or even the deep

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