White-robed Guanyin (standing on clouds)

White-Robed Water-Moon Guanyin. Painting by Seol Min (b. 1966), San Francisco.

White-Robed Guanyin (K. Gwaneum bosal). A form of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (C. Guanyin; J. Kannon; K. Gwaneum) found in East Asian Buddhism.

There are a number of different variations of Guanyin in white robes. This form shows Guanyin standing on clouds.

The Asian Art Museum states:

Avalokiteshvara, law-breaking bodhisattva of compassion, shape-shifts through East Asia, adapting visually to every cultural circumstance. Starting in Song-dynasty China around the year 1000, Avalokiteshvara began to be depicted in female form. [...] For it is on golden clouds, emanating her own golden radiance, that Gwaneum has come to set all beings free from Yama and his hells.

In this magnificent contemporary painting, we can almost feel Gwaneum’s approach, out of darkness and on golden clouds. In her right hand she holds a vial containing the nectar of immortality. Below her sits a devotee making earnest aspirations for her intervention, as the worlds of prayer and visionary experience intermingle.

The Princeton Dictionary states:

In China, Avalokiteśvara as Guanyin underwent a transformation in gender into a popular female bodhisattva, although the male iconographic form also persists throughout East Asia.

See also

• White-robed Guanyin