Avalokiteshvara with Many Arms
Newari Paubha Painting (PRINT)
Handmade natural mineral pigments on canvas
 
Artist: Sudharshan Suwal 
 
Avalokiteshvara’s many arms and heads represent his ability to save all living beings and lead them to enlightenment. He is wearing flowing embroidered robes and rich jewellery, and his heads are crowned. 
 
Avalokiteshvara exemplifies the bodhisattva’s resolve to postpone his own buddhahood until he has helped every sentient being on earth achieve liberation (moksha; literally, “release”) from suffering (dukkha) and the process of death and rebirth (samsara). His name has been variously interpreted as “the lord who looks in every direction” and “the lord of what we see” (that is, the actual created world). 
 
According to legend, Avalokiteshvara’s head once split with grief at realising the number of suffering beings in the world yet to be saved. Amitabha transformed each of the pieces into a head and placed them on Avalokiteshvara in three tiers of three, then the 10th, and topped them all with his own image. Sometimes the 11-headed Avalokitesvara is represented with thousands of arms, which rise like the outspread tail of a peacock around him. Avalokiteshvara’s traditional residence in Tibetan Buddhism is the mountain Potala. Avalokiteshvara’s images are frequently placed on hilltops.
 
Avalokiteshvara in Buddhism, and primarily in Mahayana (“Greater Vehicle”) Buddhism, the bodhisattva (“buddha-to-be”) of infinite compassion and mercy, possibly the most popular of the Buddhist wisdom deities. Avalokiteshvara is beloved throughout the Buddhist world—not only in Mahayana Buddhism but also in Theravada (“Way of the Elders”), the branch of Buddhism that largely does not recognize bodhisattvas, and in Vajrayana (“Diamond Vehicle”), the Tantric (or Esoteric) branch of Buddhism.
 
Avalokiteshvara mantra in Sanskrit: 
Om Mani Padme Hung