Page 123 - Popular Deities of Chinese Buddhism (Illustrated) and Symbols

of the Trayastrimsa Heaven as a mark of gratitude and remem-

brance for his beloved mother.

In this Sutra the Buddha revealed that in the distant past aeons,

Ti Tsang P’usa, then a Brahman maiden by the name of ‘Sacred

Girl’, was deeply troubled when her mother died as she had

often been slanderous towards the ree Jewels — the Buddha,

Dharma and Sangha.

To save her from the great tortures of hell, the young girl sold

whatever she had and used the money to buy offerings which she

offered daily to the Buddha of her time, known as e Buddha

of Flower of Meditation and Enlightenment. She made fervent

prayers that her mother be spared of the pains of hell and re-

quested the Buddha for help.

One day at the temple, while she was thus pleading for help, she

heard the voice of the Buddha advising her to go home immedi-

ately and there to sit down and practise meditation on His name

if she wanted to know where the spirit of her mother was. She

did as she was told and while doing so, her soul was transported

to the Hell Realm where she met a hell-guardian who informed

her that through her fervent prayers and pious offerings, her

mother had accumulated much merits and therefore her soul

had already been released from hell and ascended to heaven. She

was greatly relieved and should have been extremely happy, but

the sights of the great sufferings in Hell that she had witnessed

so touched her tender heart that she made an immediate vow: “I

shall exercise my very best to relieve beings of their sufferings

forever in my future lives of kalpas to come.”

 