Ksitigarbha

Ksitigarbha or Ti Tsang Wang Pusa in Chinese. He also a very popular Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva who is usually represented by a monk holding a six ring staff and a red fire ball which said to symbolised a jewel. The chinese name Ti Tsang is translated as "Earth Treasury"

Ti Tsang Wang Pu Sa is revered ad the protector of stillborn,miscarried and aborted babies. He is also the protective deity of travellers and guardian of pregnant women. He protects against earthquakes, and he a guardian of children.

Ksitigarbha is also renowned as the Bodhisattva of the Hell Beings and his vow not to achieve Buddhahood until all the hells are cleared. His famous vow follows: "Not until all the hells are emptied will I become a Buddha."

The history of Ksitigarbha is recorded in the Sutra of the Great Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, one of the famous Mahayana sutras. This sutra is said to be spoken by The Lord Buddha to the devas of Thirty Three Devas as a mark of rememberence and gratitude for his mother, Mahadevi.

In this sutra, the Buddha revels that in the distant past, Ksitigarbha was a Brahman woman by the name of Sacred Girl. She was very sad when her mother died, because her mother had often been slanderous towards the Three Jewel.

To save her from hell, Sacred Girl sold whatever she had and use the money to buy offerings to the Buddha at that time, The Buddha pf Flower of Meditation and Englightenment. She made fervent prayers that her mother be spared from hell and requested the Buddha for assistance.

One day, while pleading for help she heard the voice of the Buddha asking her to go home immediately and there to sit down and chant his name if she wanted to know where her mother was.

She did so, her consciousness was transported to a Hell Realm. There, she met a guardian of hell and he told Sacred Girl that through her constant prayers and pious offerings, her mother had accumulated much merits and had already been released and had ascended to the heavens.

She was greatly relieve and she should be very happy, but the scenes of the sufferings in the Great Hells she had seen so touched her heart that she made this famous vow to her very best to relieve the sufferings of beings forever in their future lives in the eons to come.

Mantra:Namo Ti Tsang Wang Pusa