The bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

If the scale of the suffering on this planet has ever blown your mind, if its ongoing hellish conditions have made your psyche all but explode at our species’ craziness, then you will understand and appreciate the perspective, as well as the somewhat curious form, of Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara. You see him here in a very early and unusual planar shrine, where his eleven heads and thousand arms are surrounded by iterations of his visionary formula. Made of silver and dating to the thirteenth century, it is a very early and powerful example of this sacred art form.

The text where he makes his most dramatic appearance is the perhaps disappointingly titled “Array of Baskets” (Karandavyuha), but that’s where the disappointment ends. For here, Avalokiteshvara’s “downward gazing eyes” (literal translation of his name) find themselves transfixed on the abyssal Avici Hell and along with it the most catastrophic cosmic condemnations karma could conceivably conjure.

Finding himself simultaneously horrified at the spectacle and impotent to end it, Avalokiteshvara uses his wonder-working powers to do what he can. He converts the (illusory) fire pits he sees into lotus tanks, thus (miraculously) transforming hell into heaven. With his eleven blown minds, which you see stacked atop his “ordinary” one, he understands all of samsara and nirvana. From his thousand miraculous arms, each bearing a visionary eye, he can see and save innumerable sentient beings.

The guardians of the hells report this unusual turn of events to their lord, Yama the King of Hell. Wondering who had done such a thing, annoyed Yama goes over the usual trouble-making suspects like Shiva and Vishnu. Finally, he opens his divine eye, and instead finds universally benevolent Avalokiteshvara there. Overcome with awe at Avalokiteshvara’s sacred presence and positive vibe, Yama then appears before him, places his head at the feet of Avalokiteshvara, and worships him. At that moment, he spontaneously praises Avalokiteshvara as “hundredthousand- armed,” “ten-million-hundred-thousand-eyed,” and “eleven-headed”—a series of epithets comprising the ultimate source of the iconography expressed in this uniquely powerful work of sacred art.