Goddess of 1000 arms
I took a photo of this sculpture in the Forbidden City in Beijing. In spite of the fact that I am not an expert of eastern religions, I shall explain a bit about the context of this photo. It corresponds to the Buddhist deity known in Sanskrit asAvalokiteśvara , in main China as Guan Yin and in Taiwan as Kuan-yin. It is the *Bodhisattva * of compassion and in the West is known as “The Goddess of compassion” and it is seen as a protective mother figure.
(Olympus C3000Z; 1/8sec; F2.8; ISO 200)
*Avalokiteśvara * was a masculine deity in India, however when it was introduced in China Guan Yin became a feminine figure.
In China, it is represented with many arms and each hand holding different objects as: flowers, rosaries, spears, swords, etc. For these reason it is known as the “goddess of thousand arms”, however the sculpture does not have 1000 hands.
The reason of the multiple arms (and heads) is due to the following legend: Avalokiteśvara proposed to free all human beings from suffering, realizing the colossal task for the great number of people. He despaired and his head broke into several pieces. When the Buddha Amitabha knew about this situation, he collected the pieces and reassembling them. Thus forming a body with many arms and heads. In this way Avalokiteśvara can work to release suffering to many people, simultaneously.
Before I have published a similar post in Spanish.
References:
https://noticias.nat.gov.tw/news.php?unit=98,106,115&post=88479
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalokite%C5%9Bvara
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanyin
Great picture and thanks for including some detail about the 1000 arms :) think I learned something!
I am glad that you found my post interesting. This is the idea of many of my posts: to use my photos in order to explain some topics.
Interesa afero, ĉu ne? Ŝanĝiĝi de barata vira dio al ĉina ina dio ! Plaĉas al mi, ke tiu dio havas tiom da brakoj por ŝajne doni sufiĉe al ĈIUJ homoj.
La flanka aspekto de artaĵo faras bonan foton.
Jes. Tiu legendo estas mistera kaj interesa. Dankon pro viaj rimarkoj.
Awesome statue, she could do a lot of thing at the same time, cheers mate.
This is what the legend says.
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