035

  • Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteshvara

  • n.d.
  • Artist unknown (Chinese attribution)
  • Cast bronze
  • 37.3 x 21.7 x 12.1 cm., 14-11/16 x 8-1/2 x 4-3/4"
  • Paul A. Anderson Art History Collection, Augustana College, 1993.3

Essay by Nirmala Salgado, Professor of Religion and Naoko Gunji, Former Assistant Professor of Art History

Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteshvara (Chinese Qianshou Guanyin; Japanese Senju Kannon), or the thousand-armed lord who looks down with compassion, is one of the Buddhist figures known as Bodhisattvas (Enlightenment Beings). In early Buddhism, the term Bodhisattva refers to the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama/Shakyamuni) before his enlightenment as Buddha. In later Buddhism, a Bodhisattva often refers to any being who takes a vow to delay his or her own enlightenment in order to save all beings from samsara (the cycle of rebirth and redeath).

The concept of the Bodhisattva became prominent in Pure Land Buddhism, where the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara is associated with the Buddha Amida (Amitabha). According to Pure Land Buddhism, beings that have faith in Amida and recite his name are automatically born into his Pure Land also known as the Western Paradise. Beings reborn in the Pure Land are assured liberation from samsara. The Bodhisattva dwells in the Pure Land of Amida and assists him in ensuring the salvation of beings.

According to the Buddhist texts, Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteshvara has one thousand arms with eleven small faces (each is a transformed Buddha form) on top of the main head. The Bodhisattva's immense compassion and capacity, represented by the vast number of arms, are believed to save all sentient beings from perils in this world and the next. Some of the painted or sculpted Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteshvara images have one thousand arms, but most have forty-two, with two principal palms pressed together in supplication, and twenty arms each on the right and left sides. Each of these forty arms symbolizes twenty-five arms (forty times twenty-five equals one thousand), and holds an attribute (item) that has a symbolic meaning.

Augustana's Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteshvara is of a further abbreviated form: it has only sixteen arms and four faces in addition to the main head. It still carries some typical attributes of Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteshvara; for example, a skull for subjugating evil spirits, and sun and moon disks for curing blindness and fever. It is distinctive of this statue to have a large mandorla (halo surrounding the figure). In the Indian texts, Avalokiteshvara is male, but in China Guanyin, also known as the Goddess of Mercy, is more often female than male. In Japan, Kannon's gender is ambiguous. Although the origin of Augustana's sculpture is unknown, it was probably produced in China.