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Bodhisattvas
A bodhisattva is an enlightened being of great compassion who renounces personal salvation and remains in the world to help others attain the spiritual release of nirvana. Although subordinate to Buddha, some bodhisattvas are also worshipped independently. The most commonly revered bodhisattva in Chinese Buddhism is the Bodhisattva of Compassion (called Guanyin in Chinese and Avalokiteshvara in the Indian language Sanskrit.)
Bodhisattvas are usually portrayed in jewel-bedecked princely attire. They often carry either a sacred text (sutra) that represents knowledge, or a lotus, a symbol of transcendental nature. In India, where Buddhism originated, bodhisattvas traditionally have been depicted as males. In China, early images of bodhisattvas were also portrayed as males, but artists gradually began to imbue some bodhisattvas, especially Guanyin, with feminine traits. In theory, however, a bodhisattva is without gender, having transcended the duality of male and female.
In early Chinese Buddhist images, artists stressed the divine nature of a bodhisattva by reducing the physical body to an abstract pattern. By the seventh century, taste changed in favor of plump, gracefully supple figures that radiated human compassion and seemed easily approachable. |