The Bodhisattva Avalokite?vara (Ch. Guanyin, Jap. Kannon) is one of the most widely venerated deities of Mahāyāna Buddhism. As it is well-known, people in China and in some other countries under Chinese influence worshipped this Bodhisattva as a female deity from a certain period onward. There are some studies on the Chinese transformation of Avalokite?vara, but it seems that there is no extensive study on the specifically Japanese development of the cult of Avalokite?vara as a female deity. In this paper, we shall attempt to shed some light on this problem, concentrating our attention upon some aspects of the feminine representations of Nyoirin Kannon (Avalokite?vara with Wish-fulfilling Wheel). The origin of the worship of Nyoirin Kannon is very obscure. There is no Indian or Tibetan representation of Nyoirin Kannon, and its Sanskrit name itself has been restored only recently as "Avalokite?vara cakravarti cintāmani." There are twelve sūtras and rituals translated or written in Chinese, but we know almost nothing about the Chinese worship of this deity. The symbolism of Nyoirin Kannon may be the complex result of the combination of his/her two attributes: that of the wish-fulfilling jewel (cintāma?i: feminine because of its fecundity, but masculine also because of its shape) and that of the wheel (cakra), a weapon that destroys any enemy and is thus associated with royal power. In Japan, the cult of Nyoirin Kannon is attested from the early Heian period onward. One of the first statues (ca. 842), and one of the most beautiful, already represents the Bodhisattva as a female deity: it was created on the vow of an Empress Dowager, and is considered to represent this woman. On the other hand, it is said that there was a statue of Nyoirin Kannon in the chamber next to the bedroom of the Emperor; it was regarded as the "original form" (honji) of the imperial goddess Amaterasu ?mikami. Thus, from a very early period, Nyoirin Kannon in Japan was associated with femininity and imperial power. In a famous dream of Shinran (1201), Nyoirin Kannon manifests herself as the spouse of the ascetic who cannot restrain his sexual desire. We try to trace the origin of this image: it seems that it comes from a lost tantric ritual written most probably in Japan around the end of the Heian period or the early Kamakura period. Nyoirin Kannon is also associated with the "Mother Buddha Buddha's Eye" (Butsugen butsumo, Buddhalocanā) in a work by Jien, and this "Buddha's Eye" is in turn associated with the imperial consort in another famous dream of this monk (1203). Finally, we examine the association of Nyoirin Kannon with Dakini-ten, a deity representing a very powerful symbolism of eroticism and violence, in the context of the ritual of Unction of Enthronement (sokui-kanjō). Thus, here again Nyoirin Kannon functions as a symbol of femininity and of imperial (violent) power.
