Moginlin was the name of the pious Buddhist widow. She was not just helpless after her husband’s death but irrecoverably irascible.

Another legend has it that Moginlin, who might be Moggalana — which sounds more like Mulian (目蓮) —was one of the two famous disciples of Gautama Siddhartha, the other being Sariputta.

One most popular legend in China is that of Moginlin, a disciple of the Buddha who went to Hell to rescue his own mother.

Tamsui has Taiwan’s first Black-Faced Sect Founder statue. Most of Han Chinese immigrants in the once best seaport in north Taiwan came from Quanzhou, mostly from Jinjiang (晉江) and Anxi (安溪).

According to still another story about the life of Black-Faced Sect Founder, he was orphaned when he was still a toddler. It was his elder brother who took care of him.

One story about the life of Black-Faced Sect Founder tells he was born during the Song Dynasty (宋朝). His family was so poor that he had to be sent to a Buddhist temple to serve as a novice trainee.

Shortly before his death in 1109, Black-Faced Sect Founder visited a small hill nearby, named Lanshan (閬山), or High Mountain.

Because Crystal Water Sect Founder (清水祖師) started practicing medicine in Hemp Grass or Macao (麻草), he is also known as Macao Shangren (麻草上人) or Saint Hemp Grass.

Mahayana Buddhism crossed the Hindukush into China from India at the beginning of the Common Era(CE). At first, all the “deities,” particularly the bodhisattvas, were imports from India.

The most famous Chan or Zen patriarch aside from Bodhidharma is Huineng (慧能). What is most important in Zen Buddhism is the ability to mediate properly; learning in history or philosophy is not as important.