Mount Potalaka which means "Brilliance", is the mythical dwelling of the Buddhist figure Avalokitesvara

Avalokitesvara

Avalokiteśvara is a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. He is one of the more widely revered bodhisattvas in mainstream Mahayana Buddhism....

, said to exist in the seas south of India. The mountain is first mentioned in the final chapter of the Flower Garland Sutra, the Gandavyuha Sutra, where the chapter's protagonist journeys to seek the advice of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. Later Buddhists, such as the Japanese Yogacara

Yogacara

Yogācāra is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It developed within Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism in about the 4th century CE...

 monk, Jōkei (monk)

Jōkei (monk)

was an influential Buddhist, scholar-monk and reformer of the Hosso sect in Japan, posthumously known as .Jokei was a prolific author, asserting and compiling the Hosso/Yogacara doctrine, while simultaneously refuting newer Buddhist movements, particularly the Pure Land movement begun by Honen...

 espoused aspiring rebirth on Mount Potalaka as an easier way to attain progress on the Buddhist path than the more well-known Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha.