The Woman of
Yen-chou is a figure from
Chinese/
Buddhist folklore who is often associated with
Kuan-yin. She lived in eastern
Shensi during the
Tali era (766-779). She slept with any man who asked her. Having
sex with this woman was a special experience because after having sex with her a man was said to become completly free from
sexual desire. She was considered a
woman of ill repute and after her death buried without ceremony in a common grave. Some time later, much to the
mystification of the villagers a foreign
monk came to the villiage to offer
incense and pay respect to her at her
grave. The villagers asked him why he would bother with a
husbandless woman of
loose virtue. He told them that she acted out of
compassion. When she slept with all those men she did not to satishfy her own needs, but in order to
cure them of their
desire and help them towards spiritual transformation. The monk predicts that if her bones would be found chained together, (a sign of a holy person or
bodhisattva) and when they dug up her grave they were.
Sources: Chun-fang Yu. "Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara"