Author’s Note: To every member of the 2SLGBTQN+ – we LOVE you regardless of who you are and what you think! I suspect that this is not stated enough by the Communist Movement due to the influence of the evilness of homophobia! The Soviet Red Army stands between ALL vulnerable groups and infividuals (including those with Disabilities, the Homeless and the poor, etc) and the forces of violence which would do them harm! Please give the people of China a chance! Chinese culture is quite naturally gender-fluid – but approaches this from a historical Chinese perspective that is ‘different’ from that of the ‘Binary’ West! Even the right-wing (and generally odious) journalist ‘Max Hastings’ stated in his historical work assessing the Korean War (1950-1953) that many hardened, frontline Chinese (‘Volunteer’) soldiers were seen ‘holding hands’ whilst in the US POW Camps – whilst being generally brutalised for daring to exercise ‘free thought’ (this is part of Chinese culture even today)! Non-White cultures – including countries where Buddhism has spread – possess a much more fluid and less structured cultural interpretation of ‘identity’, ‘gender’ and ‘sexual’ orientation! We are your friends – so please give us a chance! ACW (15.4.2023)
The concept of a female goddess in China existed thousands of years prior to the development of Buddhism in India – and yet when the ‘male’ Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva (evoking ‘Compassion’) was transmitted into China from India – ‘he’ morphed into a ‘she’ (becoming locally known as ‘Guanyin’ [觀音] or she who is ‘Attentive to Sound’) – whilst retaining all the Buddhist characteristics. Why did this ‘transgender’ event occur?
The concept of a female goddess in China existed thousands of years prior to the development of Buddhism in India – and yet when the ‘male’ Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva (evoking ‘Compassion’) was transmitted into China from India – ‘he’ morphed into a ‘she’ (becoming locally known as ‘Guanyin’ [觀音] or she who is ‘Attentive to Sound’) – whilst retaining all the Buddhist characteristics. Why did this ‘transgender’ event occur?
I suspect the idea of the ‘fertile woman’ was so mysterious and compelling to the ancient Chinese mind (Hongshan culture often depicts full-bellied pregnant ‘producing human life’ – as being worthy of the highest respect) that any incoming ‘male’ religious influences had to conform to this feminine standard. During the 1980s, a Goddess Temple was discovered within Northeast China dating to he Hongshan Period (which just precedes the Xia Dynasty).
Between May-July, 2020 – an example of the ‘China Culture Ancestor Spirit‘ (中華祖神 – Zhong Hua Zu Shen) – was discovered in the Aohan Banner area on the border of Southeast Inner Mongolia (an integral part of China) and the Liaoning province of Northeast China. The actual ‘Hongshan’ (紅山) statue in question (which is around 5000 years old) is far less sophisticated than those shown in the video (and in this instance is ‘male’ – which is unusual for Hongshan). This is because those making the video used contemporary statues of a fully developed ‘Guanyin’ (female) statue made much later than the Hongshan period (4700-2900 BCE).
The producers of the above video seem to be assuming an evolutionary link between the ‘old’ (Hongshan) female deity and the ‘new’ (Indian) originally ‘male’ Bodhisattva. If this is the case, perhaps the Chinese people of the Hongshan ‘called out’ to their statues of divine womanhood (as an act of ‘worship’ in the holy places) and that the later (and ‘originally’) male ‘Guanyin’ (at the local level) retained this function whilst transforming into a ‘female’ Buddhist icon.
English Language Reference:
Werner Eichhorn, Chinese CVivilisation – An Introduction, (Translated by Janet Seligman), Faber and Faber, (1969), Pages 21-28 – Chapter 1 – The Beginning of Chinese Civilisatin (i) – Prehistory, the Yangshao Epoch and the ‘Hsia Dynasty’
This is an excellent academic (German) work of great integrity dating from the late 1960s! The interpretations contain within are thoroughly and robustly ‘objective’ and completely free of any US anti-intellectualism or the highly ‘subjective’ ideology associated with the usual distortions inherent within Cold War ‘Presentism’! Indeed, the assessment of the available of the time by Werner Erichhorn is extraordinarily insightful and have been proved ‘correct’ not by Western assumptions – but rather the hard results of contemporary Chinese scientific research in this area – particularly within the field of modern Archaeology! What Werner Erichhorn thought he knew in the 1960s about the pre-history of China – the Chinese scientists (brought up within the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist System) – have confirmed to be ‘correct’! When I was young, the Western academic establishment, corrupted as it was by the racism inherent within US anti-intellectualism, used to state that all notions of a Chinese prehistory (being older than ancient Greece) – were the product of pure imagination triggered by China’s encounter with the ‘superior’ West during the last four hundred years! As I am proud to be a Westerner brought up as ‘Chinese’ – I can assure the average reader that EVERY Chinese person carries this prehistory in their hearts, minds and bodies! It is as true as the sky above and the ground below! It is all premised upon LOVE – but the sickness of racism prevents this love from spreading and enthusing every particle of life with a vibrant ‘peace’ and ‘stability’!
THE SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 