KEYWORDS: Guanyin Kuan-yin seated in royal ease pose

Title: Guanyin(Kuan-yin) seated in “royal-ease” pose
Dates: ca. 1250 CE
Sculptor: Anonymous (unknown)
Place Made: Asia, China
Culture: Chinese
Period: Southern Song (Sung)Dynasty
Techniques: subtractive process; carving; sculpture-in-the-round and relief
Similar images in other collections: 
Medium/Materials: Wood with traces of blue-green, red, and gold pigments on white clay underlayer with relief designs
Dimensions: h. 110.0 cm., approx w. 79.0 cm., approx d. 50.0 cm. (43 5/16 x 31 1/8 x 19 11/16 in.)
Credit Line: Museum purchase, Carl Otto von Kienbusch Jr., Memorial Collection,1950
Provenance: Private Collection in Beijing, China, early 20th century; [Yamanaka & Co., Japan, by 1923]; [Mathias Komor (1909–1984), New York]; purchased by the Princeton University Art Museum for the Carl Otto von Kienbusch Jr. Memorial Collection, 1950.

The Chinese Buddhist deity Guanyin, (Sanskrit as Avalokiteshvara), is the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion. A Bodhi (awakening, enlightenment) sattva (sentient being) refers to a person or being who is spiritually ready to attain nirvana—the state of liberation from earthly suffering and the endless cycle of rebirth known as samsara—but chooses to remain in the mortal world to ease the suffering of other sentient beings and help others attain enlightenment. Guanyin, whose name means one who “hears the sounds” of the world’s sorrows, became a figure of veneration throughout East Asia.
The flexible pose of “royal ease,” with a raised leg and casually draped arm, became associated with the deity in China by the late ninth century. Temple sculptures such as this Guanyin were periodically restored; the relief patterns on the surface of the skirt and scarves were probably added during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).
The bodhisattva Guanyin is an important figure in the Mahayana ¬Buddhist tradition in China. Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings who reject Buddhahood to remain in the six realms of transmigration, where they can allay suffering and help others to attain enlightenment. In his Chinese translation of the Indian sacred text the Lotus Sutra, the Indo-Iranian missionary Kumarajiva (ca. 350–410 CE) refers to the deity as the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion. In chapter 25 of the text, the deity vows to save those in danger of murder, shipwreck, and other forms of suffering. Guanyin could appear in more than thirty different manifestations in order  tohelphuman beings on their path to enlightenment. Each of these manifestations is described in detail in the Lotus Sutra. These different manifestations reflect the bodhisattva’s use of "skillful means" (Sanskrit upaya) to appeal to a variety of people who possess different capacities to understand the teachings of Buddhism. The bodhisattva’s full Chinese name Guanshiyin, as translated from the Sanskrit by the monk Xuanzang (a.d.602?–644), means "Observer of the Cries of the World." Over time, the deity became the most beloved deity in Chinese Buddhism leading to a cult devoted to it that emerged between the third and the sixth centuries. With the rise of the Pure Land School of Buddhism in the seventh century, Guanyin became the most important deity in the Chinese Buddhist pantheon, as the attending bodhisattva to the Buddha Amitabha in his Western Paradise.
Bodhisattvas have technically transcended the physicality of gender, which in Mahayana Buddhism is considered but a delusion of the unenlightened. In Indian Mahayana Buddhism, however, bodhisattvas in visual form, were usually represented as males, dressed as Indian princes (bare torso partially covered with scarves, a long skirt,wearing a crown (or tiara) and mustache, as androgynous handsome males. This sculpture of Guanyin can be read as being either male or female. It has been debated that Guanyin’s origins go back to Taoism, the indigenous religion of China. As Mahayana Buddhism began to filter into China from the 1st century CE, Taoist deities were co-opted into Buddhism – a deliberate tactic, perhaps, on the part of Buddhists to gradually phase out the older religion. Compassion in China, was seen as a female or maternal emotion, which led to the gradual feminization of the deity in the Chinese context.An eleventh-century apocryphal sutra presented a white-robed form of the bodhisattva along with a "child-giving" form having the power to bestow sons upon female devotees. Around the beginning of the twelfth century, the bodhisattva became associated with a tale of the ancient princess Miaoshan, who was said to have been banished from the palace upon her refusal to marry. After she donated her own eyes and arms as medicine to cure her father’s illness, she was revealed to be a thousand-armed, thousand-eyed goddess. This thousand-armed and -eyed figure corresponds to a manifestation of Guanyin, who uses her eyes to see all the world’s troubles and her arms to assist those in need. The popular reference to Guanyin as the "Goddess of Mercy" stems from early Jesuit interpretations of the deity’s function.
This figure has been identified as Guanyin by the miniature seated image of Amitabha Buddha in the crown. The circular urna in the forehead, one of the marks of an enlightened being, is empty, but presumably originally contained a piece of glass or rock crystal. The figure’s relaxed pose of rajalilasana, or royal ease, with a raised leg and casually draped arm, did not become associated with the deity until late in the ninth century.
Despite the languid posture, the torso retains a sense of unmoving solidness, disturbed neither by much movement nor by dramatic distortion. The paridhana skirt, draping the lower portion with beautiful ease, is confidently natural and conforms to the shape of the body underneath. Temple sculptures were periodically redecorated, and the addition of relief designs on the surface of the skirt and scarves probably occurred sometime in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).