The High King Avalokitesvara Sutra, also known as the High King Guan Yin Sutra, the High King Sutra, Gao Wang Jing or Gao Wang Guan Shi Yin Zhen Jing is famous “dream transmission” sutra that first rose to fame by creating a mystical life saving experience for a death row prisoner around 1500 years ago. Subsequently, it spread throughout China and into Korea and Japan.
During the Tang dynasty (618-907CE), when it was most widely read, are the times when life for the ordinary man was considered happiest in Chinese history. Most historians agree that the Tang was the golden age of Chinese civilisation.
It was also widespread in the Western Xia dynasty (1038 – 1227CE), and as if vindicating its affirmations that one will not be harmed by weapons, they were one of the nations that held on longest in the face of the Mongolian invasions led by Genghis Khan. Prior, Khan often required them to pay tribute sending their soldiers to serve in his army as they had such fame for being incredibly hardy horseback soldiers. Khan’s forces eventually surrounded them and their emperor offered his life that his people would be spared. Khan accepted and beheaded him only to treacherously go back on his words and invade anyway! The Xixia forces lost the will to fight on without their leader and fled to Tibet and Nepal. The eighteenth-century chronicler Bi Yuan (1730–1797) listed Genghis Khan’s conquest of Xia as the final and crowning achievement of the great khan’s life. It took him almost two decades and an act of despicable lying to do so.
Recently it has had a significant resurgence in popularity, mainly by being the primary daily sutra read by members of True Buddha School. However it doesn’t belong to True Buddha School; anyone can read it and enjoy its benefits, just as they have done for centuries before True Buddha School existed.
The High King Sutra is found in the Chinese Tripitaka, Korean Tripitaka, and Japanese Tripitaka collections, as well as in the Tangut Tripitaka and Dunhuang manuscripts. The High King Sutra is also found in the famous Fangshan Stone Sutra Collection engraved in the Leiyin caves dating from around 616CE. The earliest existing version of the High King Sutra is the statue stele made by Du Zhaoxian in 547CE of the Northern Wei dynasty. This supports the records that claim the sutra originated around a decade earlier.
The ancient Sanjūsangen-dō temple in Japan (built 1164CE) enshrines of each of the transformations of the High King Guan Yin mentioned in the High King Sutra, namely the Great Wisdom Avalokitesvara, the Observant Avalokitesvara, the Noble Avalokitesvara and the Expansively Minded Avalokitesvara. Like Dunhuang and Fangshan, this temple is considered a national treasure.
Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of greatest compassion, has myriad forms. Of Avalokitesvara’s many transformations, the High King Guan Yin is considered amongst the most powerful transformations.
The Benefits Of Practicing The High King Sutra
Some benefits of the practices relating to the High King Guan Yin are:
Can purify fixed karmas which ordinarily could not be removed by a single Buddha
One will not be harmed by knives and weapons
One will not be burned or harmed by fire
One will not be poisoned
One’s life will be extended
One becomes big hearted and kind, a loving person that is loved by others
One gains the support and empowerment of the buddhas of the past, present and future together with countless bodhisattvas
The fate of one’s nation improves
One’s material circumstances and prosperity become greater
One discovers a multitude of means by which achieve correct awakening and can attain experiential validation of them
One is liberated from the suffering of birth and death, and freed from all the many kinds of suffering
