longnü
The daughter of the dragon king, an eight year old longnü (龍女, nāgakanyā), after listening to Mañjuśrī preach the Lotus Sutra, transforms into a male Bodhisattva and immediately reaches full enlightenment. Some say this tale appears to reinforce the viewpoint prevalent in Mahayana scriptures that a male body is required for Buddhahood, even if a being is so advanced in realization that they can magically transform their body at will and demonstrate the emptiness of the physical form itself.
↻ synthesized from 4 sources
When
- First attested
- 0 CE
- Attested period
- 0 – 2020
- Historical notes
- Buddhist manifestation of Yunü appearing in texts since the Song dynasty.
Relationships
- co occurs with
- Jintong, Old Man of the South Pole, Kuimulang, Avalokiteshvara, great nāga, Amitabha, Paṇḍāravāsinī, Mahāsthāmaprāpta, Shancai, Jade Emperor, Weituo, Guan Yu
- aspect of
- Yunü
- allied with
- Shancai Tongzi
- serves
- Guanyin
- equivalent to
- Nāgas
- child of
- Dragon King
Mentioned by
Sources
Source passages
“In the "Devadatta" chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the daughter of the dragon king, an eight year old longnü (龍女, nāgakanyā), after listening to Mañjuśrī preach the Lotus Sutra, transforms into a male Bodhisattva and immediately reaches full enlightenment.”
#10201 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001
“the daughter of the dragon king, an eight year old longnü (龍女, nāgakanyā), after listening to Mañjuśrī preach the Lotus Sutra, transforms into a male Bodhisattva and immediately reaches full enlightenment”
#35230 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5