page_title: Marici (Buddhism)
section_title: China
hierarchical_section_title: Marici (Buddhism) / Region / China
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of the Buddhist goddess Marici at the Hong Fa Shan Esoteric Buddhist Temple in Hong Kong.
context_page_description: Mārīcī, is a deva, as well as a bodhisattva associated with light and the Sun. She is among the lists one of the guardian devas, specifically the Sixteen Devas, the Twenty Devas and the Twenty-Four Devas. In Taoism and Chinese folk religion, Doumu is considered to be synonymous with Mārīcī within Chinese Esoteric Buddhism.
context_section_description: In China, Mārīcī is worshiped as both a Buddhist and Taoist deity. She is highly revered in Esoteric Buddhism. Most often, she is depicted with three eyes in each of her three faces; with four arms on each side of her body. Two of her hands are held together, and the other six hold a sun, moon, bell, golden seal, bow, and halberd. She is either standing/sitting on top of a lotus or pig, or on a Lotus on top of seven pigs.  She is celebrated on the 9th day of the 9th lunar month.
  Due to similar iconography, she is often confused with the Bodhisattva Cundī.  Among Chinese Buddhists, she is worshiped as the goddess of light and as the guardian of all nations, whom she protects from the fury of war.
  In Taoism, Doumu remains a popular deity and is often referred to as the Queen of Heaven (Chinese: 天后; pinyin: Tiān Hòu) and is widely worshiped as the Goddess of Beidou (the Chinese equivalent of Ursa Major except that it also includes 2 "attendant" stars). She is also revered as the mother of the Nine Emperor Gods who are represented by the nine stars in the Beidou constellation.  Legend has it that one spring day, a queen went to bathe in a pond. Upon entering she suddenly felt "moved" and nine lotus buds rose from the pond. Each of these lotus buds opened to reveal a star which then became the Beidou constellation.
  She is worshiped today in Taoist temples like the White Cloud Temple and the Tou Mu Kung Temple which has both Taoist and Buddhist influences.
  Doumu is chronicled in three canonical Daozang texts, from which the above stories have been extracted.
  These three texts were compiled during the Song Yuan, according to the each entry’s preface in the Zhengtong daozang (Numbered according to Schipper, 1975).  They are Dz 45: 'Yùqīng Wúshàng Língbǎo Zìrán Běidǒu Běnshēng Jīng' 玉清無上靈寶自然北斗本生經, True and Unsurpassed Lingbao Scripture from the Yuqing Heaven on the Spontaneous Origin of the Northern Dipper;  Dz 621: Tàishàng Xuánlíng Dǒumǔ Dàshèng Yuánjūn Běnmìng Yánshēng Xīnjīng 太上玄靈斗姆大聖元君本命延生心經, Heart Scripture of Original Destiny and Extending Life of the Great Sagely Goddess Dipper Mother;  and Dz 1452: Xiāntiān Dǒumǔ Qíngào Xuánkē 先天斗姆秦告玄科, Mysterious Rite for Petitioning the Dipper Mother of Former Heavens.
caption: Mārīcī with eight-arms and four faces riding on a boar – Hongfashan Temple, Hong Kong
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