Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Jūichimen Kannon
Not on view
This magnificently large iconographic drawing would have been used by specialized Buddhist painters known as e-bushi (literally, "painting monks") in the creation of large-scale Buddhist paintings. The iconography of the eleven-headed form of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Jūichimen Kannon) is marked as esoteric by the fact that it has four, rather than two, arms. The image is consistent with the way the bodhisattva appears in the Womb World Mandala in the Hall of Soshitsuji. This section appears at the bottom of the cosmic diagram and represents the "power of excellent accomplishment." The bodhisattva is depicted at the far left of the group of eight bodhisattvas one would encounter just within the central gate at the bottom of the mandala. It is unusual to find this form of the bodhisattva depicted as a single image for worship.
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