A goddess? originally worshiped in China (now worshiped in other parts of the world? as well). A guardian and patron of mothers and seaman. A personification of compassion and kindness.
One story of her origins is that she was once a human daughter of a cruel father who wanted her to marry a wealthy but mean man. She asked to enter a temple? instead. her father let her but asked the the temple to give her very hard chores in order to discourage her. She had to work all day and all night while others slept in order to finish her work. She was such a good person that the animals that lived around the temple began to help her with her chores. her father got so frustrated that her burned down the temple. Kwan Yin put out the fire with her bare hands and suffered no burns. Then her father ordered her to be put to death. After she died she was made into a goddess for all of her kindness and was on her way to heaven. She was about to cross over into heaven when she heard a cry of suffering back on earth. She asked to be sent back and vowed to stay until all suffering had ended.
There is some dispute over the gender of Kwan yin. In Chinese Buddhism, Kwan Yin has been portraited as a female, hence sometimes the bodhisattva is refered to as the 'Goddess of Mercy'. However, there have been some scholars in the past decade arguing that the bodhisattva is male, and that his gender was mistaken because all drawings of him are always showing him in a robe and a cowl over his head. Since Chinese male doesn't traditionally dress that way, most worshipers took for granted that he is a she.
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