Dizang- Chinese GodDeity"Earth Store Bodhisattva"

The Brahman Maiden

The Dìzàng Púsà Běnyàn Jīng recounts four previous lives of Dìzàng. In the first, he was a Brahman maiden who discovered that her deceased mother, a woman of impious life, had been reborn in the Avīci Hell, the lowest and most terrible of the Buddhist hells, where suffering is uninterrupted. Stricken with grief, the maiden made offerings to the Buddha of her era, and through the merit generated was able to see her mother released. Moved by the suffering she had witnessed, not only her mother's but that of countless beings surrounding her, she vowed before the Buddha to rescue all beings from every hell throughout all future kalpas.

In a second key life, Dìzàng was a filial daughter named Bright Eyes whose mother had been a habitual eater of fish and turtle spawn. After her mother's death, Bright Eyes learned through meditation that her mother had fallen into hell. Through devoted offerings and recitation of the Buddha's name, she secured her mother's rebirth in a human realm, though her mother was fated to die again at age thirteen. Bright Eyes made another vast vow to save all suffering beings.

From these stories came the declaration by which all Chinese Buddhists know Dìzàng: "If the hells are not empty, I vow not to become a Buddha."

The Lord Below

While the Ten Kings of Hell administer the courts that judge and sentence the dead, Dìzàng stands above them as a spiritual sovereign. His role is not that of a judge but an advocate: he intervenes on behalf of the condemned, transfers merit to shorten their sentences, and preaches the dharma even in the deepest hells so that beings might plant the seeds of future liberation.

The Dìzàng Jīng describes how the Buddha himself entrusted Dìzàng with the welfare of all beings in the period between the passing of Śākyamuni and the coming of Maitreya, an unimaginably long interim during which no Buddha walks the earth. Dìzàng carries a monk's staff whose six rings represent the six realms of rebirth. The jangling of the rings opens the gates of hell, announcing his arrival to suffering beings.

Mount Jiuhua

Mount Jiuhua in Anhui province is Dìzàng's cult center. Its association with the bodhisattva dates to the Tang dynasty, when a Korean prince-turned-monk named Kim Gyo-gak traveled to China and settled on the mountain, practicing extreme austerities for seventy-five years before dying at the age of ninety-nine.

When his tomb was opened three years after his death, his body was found perfectly preserved and undecayed, a sign interpreted as proof that he was a living incarnation of Dìzàng. His mummified remains, known as the "Flesh-Body Bodhisattva," can still be viewed at the shrine on Mount Jiuhua. The mountain's tradition of preserved monk bodies continued through subsequent centuries, each considered to have attained a state beyond ordinary death through Dìzàng's vow. Today the site draws millions of pilgrims who make dedications for the welfare of their deceased relatives.

The Truth-Listening Beast

Dìzàng is accompanied by Dìtīng ("Truth-Listener"), a creature that can distinguish truth from falsehood and perceive the true nature of any being. In Journey to the West, Dìtīng plays a crucial role when a perfect double of Sun Wukong appears and neither the Jade Emperor, Guanyin, nor Yanluo Wang can tell the two apart. Dìzàng summons Dìtīng, who presses its ear to the ground and immediately identifies the impostor. But it is too frightened to speak aloud, fearing the false monkey's violence in the underworld where they stand. Dìzàng, recognizing the limits of his own domain, directs the pilgrims to the Buddha himself for resolution.

The Ghost Festival

The Ghost Festival, observed on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, became a major occasion for Dìzàng veneration. Families made offerings of food, burned paper money for the deceased, and commissioned monks to recite sūtras to ease the suffering of their ancestors. The story of Mulian, the arhat who descended into hell to save his own mother from punishment, merged with Dìzàng's mythology to produce one of the most popular theatrical traditions in Chinese history: the Mulian Rescues His Mother plays were performed at temples during the festival for over a millennium.

Dìzàng's own birthday is celebrated on the thirtieth day of the seventh month, immediately following the Ghost Festival, extending the season of remembrance into a full month of devotion. His mantra, "Námó Dìzàng Wáng Púsà," is among the most frequently chanted phrases in Chinese religious life.