A remarkable description of an image of Avalokiteṡvara seen by Sarat Chandra Dās (so recently as 1882) in the great temple at Lhāssa occurs in his ‘Narrative’ (which I here abridge):—
Next to the image of Buddha, the most conspicuous figure was that of Chanrassig (i. e. the eleven-faced Avalokiteṡvara). The origin of this is ascribed to King Sron Tsan Gampo ([p. 271] of this volume). Once the king heard a voice from heaven, saying that if he constructed an image of Avalokiteṡvara of the size of his own person, all his desires would be fulfilled.
Thereupon he proceeded to do so, and the materials he used were a branch of the sacred Bodhi-tree, a portion of the Vajrāsana, some soil from an oceanic island, some sand from the river Nairañjana, some pith of Goṡīrsha sandal-wood, a portion of the soil of the eight sacred places of ancient India, and many other rare articles pounded together and made into paste, with the milk of a red cow and a she-goat. This paste the king touched with his head, and prayed to the all-knowing Buddhas and the host of Bodhi-sattvas, that by the merit of making that image, there might be god-speed to the great work he had undertaken—namely, the diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet.
The gods, Buddhas, saints, etc. filled the aerial space to listen to his prayer.
The king then ordered the Nepālese artist to hasten the completion of the image, and with a view of heightening its sanctity, obtained a sandal-wood image of Avalokiteṡvara from Ceylon and inserted it inside, together with the relics of the seven past Buddhas. When the work was finished, the artist said:—
‘Sire, I cannot say that I have made this image, it has passed into self-grown existence.’ Then a current of lightning flashed forth from its feet. Afterwards, the souls of the king and his queen are said to have been absorbed into it, in consequence of which this image is called ‘the five-absorbed self-sprung.’
It is recorded in another tradition that a wonder-working image of Avalokiteṡvara was set up in a monastery near Kabul, and another in Magadha near the Ganges. Any worshipper who approached these idols in devotion and faith were favoured with a personal vision of the saint. The statues opened, and the Bodhi-sattva emerged in bright rays of light (compare Koeppen, i. p. 499).
Originally, and still in Tibet, Avalokiteṡvara (otherwise called Padma-pāṇi) had only male attributes; but in China this deity (as we have already mentioned at [p. 200]) is represented as a woman, called Kwan-yin (in Japan Kwan-non), with a thousand arms and a thousand eyes. She has her principal seat in the island of Poo-too, on the coast of China, which is a place of pilgrimage.
There are two images of Kwan-yin in the British Museum, one with sixteen arms and the other with eight.
Images of the third mythical Bodhi-sattva—the fierce Vajra-pāṇi, ‘holding a thunderbolt in one hand’—like one form of Ṡiva—are almost as common as those of the merciful and mild Avalokiteṡvara. He has been described in a previous Lecture ([p. 201]).
In the Pitt-Rivers collection at Oxford there is an image of this Bodhi-sattva engaged in combating the power of evil. It is remarkable that the figures of three monkeys are carved underneath, one stopping his ears with his hands, another stopping his eyes, and another his mouth, to symbolize the effort to prevent the entrance of evil desires through the three most important organs of sense.
With regard to the images of female deities we may observe that Tārā, the wife or Ṡakti of Amogha-siddha ([p. 216]), is represented as a green sedent figure; her right hand on her knee, her left holding a lotus.
A standing image of the goddess Paṭṭinī ([p. 217] of this volume) may be seen in the British Museum.
In a temple which I visited near Dārjīling I saw the image of the Padma-sambhava or ‘lotus-born’ form of Buddha occupying the centre of the altar, with the images of Gautama Buddha and of Buddha Āyushmat, or the ‘Buddha of Life,’ on each side.