佛像网

尺寸：43.3 × 12.4 × 9 cm
年代：9世纪 大理国时期
质地：铜鎏金
风格：大理
来源：美国Walters艺术博物馆
参阅：外部链接
鉴赏：

The Bodhisattva Guanyin
Chinese (Artist)
late 9th century CE
Gilded arsenical bronze
(China)

这尊精雕细琢的观音像中，慈悲菩萨身着束带长裙与披帛，华鬘宝冠中安住着结跏趺坐于莲台的天界佛陀化相。观音直立姿，右手轻拈柳枝（以此蘸洒左手法瓶所储清净甘露），左手持净瓶。

这尊汉地造像见证了观音法相跨越千年的流变——从公元1世纪印度起源，穿越喜马拉雅山脉，至3世纪传入中土。在这漫长东渐历程中，菩萨的性别表征渐趋圆融无碍。及至12世纪，观世音菩萨多以女性化形象示现，成为汉地信众熟知的观音法相。

In this beautifully crafted statuette, Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion, wears a long, belted skirt and a shawl. Their headdress is decorated with an image of a celestial Buddha meditating on a lotus. Guanyin stands upright, holding a willow branch with which to sprinkle purifying sacred water stored in the flask that they carry in their left hand.

This Chinese sculpture expresses a transitional phase in Avalokiteshvara imagery that references the centuries-long journey that Buddhism took, initially from the first century in India, crossing the Himalayas and arriving in China by the third century. During that journey, representations of the bodhisattva became increasingly gender fluid. By the 12th century in China, the deity was most commonly represented as the feminized Guanyin.

来源:
Yamanaka & Co., New York, 1917; purchased by Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1917; by bequest to Walters Art Museum, 1931.