The story
- Sanskrit · derived fromपोतलक
- Mandarin · borrowed from普陀
- English todayPutuo
The atonal pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 普陀 (Pǔtuó), a clipped transcription of Sanskrit पोतलक (Potalaka, literally “Brilliance”), the name of the palace of the god or bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (known in China as the goddess or bodhisattva Guanyin) in the influential Flower Garland Sutra. The island in Zhejiang has been a center of Buddhist pilgrimage related to the worship of Guanyin since at least the Tang dynasty.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.