AVALOKITESVARA

In Mahayana Buddhism, boisattvas are beings who have made a vow many existences ago to become Buddhas, and who have acquired along the way vast stores of merit.  This merit is so great that they could easily achieve the full status of Buddhas and pass into nirvana, but, out of compassion, love, and pity for suffering humanity, they have postponed their departure.  Instead, they transfer their merit, as need arises, to all those who call upon them in prayer or give devotional thought to them.

Avalokitesvara, or Lord Avalokita, is the most popular bodhisattva of them all.  As his name implies, he is the "Lord Who Appears to This Age," which is to say, he is the eternal contemporary of each and every generation.  As the personification of divine compassion, he watches over everyone in the world, and is said to have come to the earth over three hundred times in human form in order to save those in peril who have called upon him.

His image typically has him in the garb of a great prince, with high headdress.  In his left hand is a red lotus, while his right hand is raised in a gracious gesture.  Sometimes he is given four, or many more, arms, all laden with gifts to humanity. 

In Tibet Avalokitesvara is accompanied by a spouse, while in China, by a metamorphosis whose history is obscure, he changed his gender and became the enormously popular Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy.  In China and Japan she is analogous to the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism.  Her attitudes are exactly those of Avalokitesvara in India, with the addition of a madonna-like maternal feeling.