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| Sri Lakshmi, or Laxmi-ji, is based on Buddhist Siri and Uppalavanna (godwallpapers4all) |
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| Khema and Uppalavanna (DS) |
Once upon a time the Bodhisatta (Buddha-to-be) was a merchant in
Benares. And because his household observed good rules, he came to be called "Pure Household[er]" (
Suciparivāra). He kept an unused bed and couch for anyone
purer than himself who might visit.
One day
Sirī devi, the goddess daughter of Dhatarattha, and
Kālakannī devi, the goddess daughter of Virūpakka, came to bathe in
Anotatta Lake. Then a quarrel arose as to who should bathe first.
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| Born from a blue lotus (BLHD) |
As neither the Four Great Sky Regents nor Sakka, King of the
Devas, were willing to decide, they referred the two goddesses to "Pure Household[er]."
First Kālakannī appeared before the Bodhisatta, dressed in blue raiments and jewels and, asked her qualities, she told him and was dismissed. Then came Sirī, emanating a yellow radiance.
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| Oh, Siri, you feel so good! |
And the Bodhisatta, discovering her virtues and identity, welcomed Sirī and offered her his unused couch. The dispute was thereby settled.
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| India is steeped in Laxmi lore (HK) |
The bed used by Sirī came to be called
Siri-saya, hence the origin of
Sirisa-yana [
yana = vehicle, platform].
Sirī is identified with
Uppalavannā Theri (
Jataka.iii. 257-64), the Buddha's
chief female disciple who, like the monk Maha Moggallana, was declared "foremost in magical powers" [and is likely to be
the historical Lakshmi].
Her latest incarnation(s)
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| 4s, 5s, 6sx...Siri has become the most-spoken-to-by-men woman in the world. |
Interestingly, Siri was reborn in recent years as the brainchild of
St. Jobs (
from heaven or,
uh). She is now the omniscient voice of the Apple-branded iPhone (a favorite of NSA/CIA spying as consumers buy and carry their own monitoring devices) -- pleasant, pretty as a sylph-ghost, and polite as her beautiful name suggests.
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| Beauty reduced to mere "sex object" |
More interestingly, the new Hollywood feature-length film about her, "
Her [Siri]" features Scar Jo as "Samantha,"
the coarse goddess of our day: alluring, attractive, awesome, but did you see her in "Don Jon" as a
hoarse Jersey guidette?
After all, she came to fame in "
Lost in Translation" not so much as an ingenue but as a bodacious (holding her body back from spilling out with a safety pin) boob from Yale trying to find herself in the shadow of others in Buddhist Japan with a creepy crush on a faltering father figure from back home.
Scarlett Johannson as Siri -- correction, Sami -- with Joaquin Phoenix
Buddhist words come from Sanskrit and not the other way around. So Siri might be rooted in Sanskrit Sri.
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