Who is the Buddhist Goddess Cundi?

(Buddha's Wisdom) Who is CUNDI? Even Vajrayana Buddhists can't answer

Goddess Cundi in Buddhism

Cundī (Sanskrit, Chinese 準提, Pinyin Zhǔntí, Japanese Juntei, Tibetan ལྷ་མོ་སྐུལ་བྱེད་མ།, Wylie lha mo skul byed ma, THL lha-mo kül-jé-ma) or Cundā (Chinese 羅馬化) is a female Indian Buddhist deity who remains popular in East Asian Buddhism.

In Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, she is associated with the practice of the well-known Cundī dharani, which is performed along with a specific mudra (hand gesture), as well as the use of a circular mirror [1, 2].

She is considered to be able to purify negative karma, provide protection, support spiritual practice that allows one to quickly attain Buddhahood [3].

This deity is also called by various other names and epithets, including:

• 准提菩萨像轴.明代.纸本设色描金.台北故宫博物院藏,
• Cundavajrī,
• Saptakoṭi Buddha-bhagavatī ("The Blessed Buddha of the Seventy Million," 七俱胝佛母),
• "Zhunti Buddha Mother" (Chinese 準提佛母, Zhǔntí Fómǔ),
• Saptakoṭibuddhamatṛ ("Mother of Seventy Million Buddhas," with Sanskrit reconstruction of 佛母 being speculative) [1, 2].

Cundi in the China monumentis 1667

Some depictions of Cundī share many iconographic and symbolic elements with another female Buddhist deity, Prajñāpāramitā Devi [Buddhism's Sophia, the anthropomorphic representation of the "Perfection of Wisdom" as a female deva].

As such, some images of these goddesses are difficult to identify [4, 5]. In Tibetan Buddhism she is known by the name Lhamo Cunda, Chunde, or Cundi ("Lhamo" in Tibetan is devi in Sanskrit, a term of veneration meaning "goddess") [6, 7]. More

Tibetan Buddhism: real meaning of 'refuge'

(Tsem Rinpoche) The real meaning of Buddhist "refuge"

The Buddhist Catechism (Amazon)

[The Pali/Sanskrit word sarana actually means "Going for GUIDANCE," NOT "going for refuge," which is a bad English translation. Early Buddhist reformer Col. Henry Steel Olcott tried to straighten out this misunderstanding more than a century ago in The Buddhist Catechism (sacred-texts.com).

But people still misunderstand and scholar mindlessly repeat the mistake without ever taking a closer look at the word and the potential confusion they are causing.

There is only one real "refuge" in the phenomenal universe, and the historical Buddha called that nirvana. Nirvana is the further shore, the real place of safety beyond rebirth. Everything in samsara is beset by disappointments and dangers on all sides.

Aside from nirvana, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the [Enlightened] Sangha are precious jewels we can resort to for GUIDANCE on the path, for encouragement, inspiration, and clarification.

We ourselves must make the effort. No one saves us but ourselves. No one can, and no one may. Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha merely POINT the way.]

Going for Guidance?

Saranam or "guidance," Col. Olcott explains: "This word has been hitherto very inappropriately and erroneously rendered 'refuge' by European Pali scholars and thoughtlessly so accepted by native Pali scholars," Wijesinha Mudaliyar writes to him to point out.

Neither Pali etymology nor Buddhist philosophy justifies the translation. "Refuge," in the sense of a fleeing back or a place of shelter, is quite foreign to true Buddhism, which insists on every person working out one's own emancipation [liberation, salvation, enlightenment].

The root Sṛ in Sanskrit (sara in Pali) means to move, to go, so that saranam would denote a moving, or one or that which goes before or with another—a Guide or Helper.

I construe the passage thus: Gacchāmi, "I go," Buddham, "to the Buddha," Sâranam, "as my Guide."

The translation of the Ti-saraṇa as the "Three Refuges" has given rise to much misapprehension and has been made by anti-Buddhists a fertile pretext for taunting Buddhists with the absurdity of taking refuge in non-entities and believing in unrealities.

The term "refuge" is more applicable to Nirvaṇa, of which saranam is a synonym.

The [Abbot] Sumangala also calls my attention to the fact that the Pali root sara has the secondary meaning of killing, or that which destroys.

Buddham saranam gacchami [Dhammam saranam gacchami, Sangham saranam gacchami] might thus be rendered "I go to the Buddha, the Doctrine, and the [Noble] Order as the destroyers of my fears—the first by his teaching, the second by its axiomatic truth, the third by their various [enlightened] examples and precepts." Source

• Singalong: The Three Jewels of Buddhism: Mantra and Meaning
• Tsem Rinpoche (video); Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, The Buddhist Catechism (BPS.lk); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly