The Long Chant of Compassion

The Great Compassion Dharani (Chinese Dabei zhou) is a lengthy incantation associated with Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion in the thousand-armed form; it is chanted daily in Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese temples and is among the longest of the dharanis in common liturgical use. A dharani is an extended formula, often in transliterated Sanskrit no longer word-for-word intelligible to those who recite it, held to concentrate and preserve the power and meaning of a teaching in its sound; this one is drawn from a scripture devoted to Avalokiteshvara's compassionate vow and is recited for protection, purification, healing and the relief of suffering, both one's own and others'. Its daily use in the monastic office and its popularity among lay devotees reflect the immense place of Avalokiteshvara, known in East Asia as Guanyin, in the devotional life of Mahayana Buddhism, where the bodhisattva's boundless compassion is invoked through the sustained recitation of the dharani's sound.