Seated thousand-armed bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin)

One of the six manifestations of Avalokiteshvara in Esoteric Buddhism, the thousand-armed Guanyin bodhisattva was widely worshiped in China since the Tang dynasty and reached an apex when the Mongols embraced Tibetan Buddhist art. It is said that because this bodhisattva previously did not have enough power to reach out to all those who needed help, the Buddha enabled him to have eleven heads to hear all their cries and one thousand arms to provide assistance to all those in need. Here, this statue has eleven faces and forty-two arms, which represent the bodhisattva’s almighty power and detection of all suffering. It is stylistically similar to sculpture created in southern China during the Ming dynasty, when Tibetan Buddhist art still had a strong influence at court.