Avalokiteshvara is the Bodhisattva of the Great Compassion, excepted by all Buddhist traditions and famously known as Kuan Yin [a feminine form] by the Chinese. Avalokiteshvara is in a form and known as 1000 armed eleven headed lokeshvara. His vast vows is to deliver all sentient beings from falling into evil states and lead them towards salvation or enlightenment. He is mostly represented by the seed mantra OM MANI PADME HUM ["Hail the jewel in the lotus!"]. Moving in all realms of existence, he tirelessly relieving beings from suffering. In Jewel Casket Array Sutra [Karandavyuha], he descended into the dark hells of Lord Yama and emits jets of magical water from the fingers of his thousands arms, to wipe out the burning flames of molten iron and with His great compassion, elevate beings into higher states of existence, like the human and devas worlds. As in the White Lotus of Compassion Sutra [Karunapundarika], Tibetans believe, Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara took a special vow in freeing them from wrong livelihood, taming their barbaric senses, transforming their violence nature into love and gave happiness to the people.
His enormously elongated head has ten faces: front, right, and left faces on three levels and one topmost front face. These faces symbolise that Avalokiteshvara has mastered all ten of the Bodhisattva stages, each face representing an attitude dominant on a particular stage. Three of the faces are loving, three are peaceful and four are fierce.On top of the whole stack there is a small separate head of Buddha Amitabha himself, symbolising that Avalokiteshvara is really a Buddha, that in fact he is the compassion of all the Buddhas. This magnificent head expresses the multidimensionality of the Bodhisattva´s compassionate awareness, that he can “manifest whats ever needed to tame whome ever”, as his many arms express his extensive power to help beeings become free from the suffering of samsara, or egocentric existence.
We offer you various collection of thousand 1000 armed eleven 11 headed avalokiteshvara thangka paintings based on tibetan buddhist texts for online sales directly from artisans workshop.