Inscriptions in cave of the Peacock King's (Kongque mingwang 孔雀明王), Kongque dong 孔雀洞

These photographs show the inscription found in the niche of the Peacock King (Ch. Kongque mingwang 孔雀明王) in Kongque dong 孔雀洞, Anyue xian 安岳縣, Sichuan sheng 四川省. The peacock king is a female bodhisattva featured in the Peacock King Sutra (Ch. Kongquewang zhou jing 孔雀王咒經, Skt. Mahāmayūrī-vidyarājñī-sūtra) and the Book of the Peacock Spell (Ch. Fomu dakongque mingwang jing 佛母大孔雀明王經, Skt. Āryam-aha-vidyarājñī-sūtra). The Peacock Sutra is an early work of Buddhist magic, derived from the peacock-protecting devotion found in the Theravādin ātānāṭiya-suttanta; the third and most widely propagated text of the Pañcarakṣā corpus. The earliest and shortest Chinese translations, which appeared in the 4th century CE, explain that the great Peacock mantra has long been used by the sages for self-protection. Metadata created by: Veerle Vantomme, Violetta Maes, Junxi Sun, Changmeng Wan, Chiung-Ju Huang, and Sinae Kim.Non UBCUnreviewedAuthor Affiliation: Ghent UniversityFacult