十一面観音影向図|Eleven-Headed Kannon on Mount Fudaraku

Unknown

13th century · Hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk · Asian Art

The Eleven-Headed Kannon is worshipped for his ability to provide the faithful with relief from suffering. He is pictured seated atop a high, rocky outcropping dotted with springs and colorful trees in the midst of a vast sea, a setting in keeping with descriptions in Buddhist scripture of Kannon’s paradisical abode, Fudaraku (Sanskrit: Potalaka). In Japan, several mountainous locales came to be associated with Kannon and his paradise, including Mount Kasuga, in the city of Nara, and Nachi Waterfall, in the Kumano region, sites to which many pilgrims flocked to worship this compassionate deity.

Artist

Unknown

Date

13th century

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975