22 March 2005

A close up of one of the statues. Although I've no idea who this is supposed to be - has anyone got any ideas?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe from the look of it that this is a statue of Kannon-bosatsu, known originally in Sanskrit as Avalokiteshvara, in Tibetan as Chenrezig, and, penultimately (from native language to Japanese) as Kuan Yin/Guan Yin in Chinese. Originally depicted as a male, in China and Japan often a kind of hermaphrodite, this is the bodhisattva of compassion. There are many depictions of bodhisattvas with multiple arms, but Kannon is by far the most common.

Lewis said...

Brilliant, thanks for that!