Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion

This handsome, youthful male figure represents Kannon, a compassionate Buddhist deity who has forgone his own enlightenment in order to guide earthly beings along the Buddha path. In Japanese Buddhist art, Kannon takes various forms. Here, leaning forward with upturned, open hands, he is an attendant to Amida, a buddha who descends from the heavens to greet the faithful at the moment of their death and deliver them to paradise. This sculpture would have stood on an altar to the right of a larger sculpture of Amida. Kannon originally held a lotus pedestal (now missing) on which the dead were placed for their journey to paradise.