The beneficent, compassionate and gracious....Quan Yin is to the Chinese the "Hearer of Prayers". Also called Kuan Yin, she represents wisdom and purity. She has a thousand arms, symbolizing her infinite compassion. The golden vase she sometimes holds represents her healing power. The willow branch represents the spiritual power of the feminine. Depictions of Quan Yin with children represent her ability to grant offspring. She is known by similar names in Japan and Southeast Asia. She is known as Quan, Kwan or Guan.
Quetzalcoatl
The plumed serpent god of Central America, Quetzalcoatl was the giver of breath and the god of the winds. He was also a creator god, who descended into the land of the dead. He gathered up the precious bones there, returned to earth and, sprinkling them with his own blood, turned them into human beings. Quetzalcoatl's enemy was Tezcatlipoca, a chief warrior who tricked the god into taking his form. Quetzalcoatl was then consumed by drunkenness and sensuality, and after a mock death in a stone box, he ordered the abandonment of the city of Tollan. He burned his palace, buried his treasures and, putting on his insignia of feathers as well as his green mask, he departed in great sorrow. He sailed away on a raft of serpents, declaring that some day he would return to reclaim his throne.
Quirinus
In Roman mythology, Quirinus was a mysterious god. At first he probably was a Sabine god. Sabines had a settlement near the future site of Rome, and they called one of their sites, in which they had erected an altar, the Collis Quirinalis ("Quirinal Hill") after Quirinus; this area was later included among the Seven hills of Rome, and Quirinus became one of the most important gods of the state as the deified form of Romulus, the founder and first king of Rome. His name derives from co-viri "men together"; as such, he embodied the military and economic strength of the Roman populus collectively. He also watched over the curia "senate house" and comitia curiata "tribal assembly", the names of which are cognate with his own. Quirinus' wife was Hora. In artworks, he was portrayed as a bearded man with religious and military clothing. He was sometimes associated with the myrtle plant. His festival was the Quirinalia, on February 17. His priest was the Flamen Quirinalis. Quirinus was cited in Virgil's Aeneid I, 292. Roman citizens were sometimes called "Quirites" after Quirinus, and considered the title an honor.
