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鬼子母神

Pronunciations

Basic Meaning: Hārītī

Senses:

  • Interpreted as 'joy'  歡喜, or pleasing. A female deity who aids in pregnancy, childbearing, and protects children. Also transcribed with 訶梨帝 and 呵利底, translated as 歡喜母 and 愛子母. According to the Mūlasarvâstivāda-vinaya, she was in an earlier lifetime a yakṣiṇī 夜叉女 who was the wife Pāñcika 鬼神王般闍迦, and she had hundreds of children, being reborn as such after having made a spiteful wish in a past life. In order to feed her children, she stole the children of others in Rājagṛha 王舍城 and fed them to her own. Śākyamuni Buddha, hearing of this, hid her youngest child, named Priyankara (or Piṅgala), under his begging bowl. When she couldn't find him she became very distraught and searched frantically, until Buddha told her that the pain she was now feeling was the same as the pain she caused all the parents whose children she had taken. Remorseful, she took refuge in the Buddha, eventually becoming a Buddhist deity. Her image is to be seen in many monasteries. The story is told in the Budong shizhe tuoluoni mimi fa 不動使者陀羅尼祕密法 T 1202.21.23a24. Representations of her are found in Gandhāra, and shrines for her in Nepal and throughout East Asia are still popular. She is counted as one of the twenty deities 二十天. (Skt. Hārītī bhūta-mātā) 〔四分律 T 1428.22.911a3〕 (Skt. hārītī bhūta-mātā) [Dan Lusthaus, Simona Lazzerini; source(s): Ui, Nakamura, Hirakawa, JEBD, Yokoi, Iwanami]
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    [Dictionary References]

    Bukkyō jiten (Ui) 166

    Bulgyo sajeon 191a

    Zengaku daijiten (Komazawa U.) 198b

    Iwanami bukkyō jiten 159

    Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary (Daitō shuppansha) 175a/194

    Japanese-English Zen Buddhist Dictionary (Yokoi) 380

    Bukkyōgo daijiten (Nakamura) 207c

    Fo Guang Dictionary 4365

    Ding Fubao

    Buddhist Chinese-Sanskrit Dictionary (Hirakawa) 1290

    Bukkyō daijiten (Mochizuki) (v.1-6)516c,527a,4896b, (v.9-10)1025c

    Bukkyō daijiten (Oda) 239-2*210-3-16

    Copyright provisions

    The rights to textual segments (nodes) of the DDB are owned by the author indicated in the brackets next to each segment. For rights regarding the compilation as a whole, please contact Charles Muller. Please do not reproduce without permission. And please do not copy into Wikipedia without proper citation!

    Entry created: 2001-09-08

    Updated: 2021-05-19