White-robed Guanyin (rock ledge)

Painting of White-robed Guanyin from China, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279).

Painting of White-robed Kannon, attributed to Kichizan Minchō (fl. 1394–1428), Japan.

White-robed Guanyin (C. Báiyī Guānyīn 白衣觀音). Also known as Bàn ná luō mó xī níng 半拏囉嚩悉寧 (Skt. Pāṇḍara-vāsinī). A form of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara found in East Asian Buddhism.

There are a number of different variations of Guanyin in white robes.

This form of Guanyin, in which the bodhisattva sits on a rock ledge over-looking the water, became popular in the Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen traditions.

The Cleveland Museum of Art states:

The figure here sits on a rocky elevation representing Potalaka in the Southern Sea, Avalokitesvara’s island home. A vase with a bamboo sprig holds pure water, the nectar of life. Bamboo shines through the figure’s halo, a way of seeing the illusionary world through the Buddhist truth.

The Cleveland Museum of Art states that the image shown from Song dynasty China is a female form:

Avalokitesvara (Guanyin in Chinese), the bodhisattva of compassion, was integrated into the Chan Buddhist canon of venerated beings. In this context, the bodhisattva is often depicted in its female manifestation as the White-Robed Guanyin. The worship of the feminine White-Robed Guanyin has its origins on Mount Tianzhu in Hangzhou, where Qian Liu (852–932), ruler of the Wuyue kingdom, established the Upper Tianzhu Monastery to venerate her image.

In reference to the Japanese image shown, the MOA Museum states:

There are quite a few numbers of Kannon in white robes sitting quietly in meditation on a rock because this motif was upheld as the ideal of ultimate Zen meditation.

Sources

• Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University