Eleven-faced Perceiver of the World's Sounds
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Eleven-faced Perceiver of the World's Sounds
十一面観音 (Skt Ekadasha-mukha; Jpn Juichimen-kannon)
One of the various forms in which Bodhisattva Perceiver of the World's Sounds is depicted. Several esoteric sutras refer to different forms of this bodhisattva, including one with eleven faces and another with a thousand arms. Images depicting those various forms were produced to
express and to venerate the bodhisattva's great compassion. According to the Mysterious Spells of the Eleven-faced Perceiver of the World's Sounds Sutra, the three faces in the front of the head of this figure are those of bodhisattvas; the three on the left are those of anger;
the three on the right are fanged bodhisattvas; the one in the back is an atrocious but laughing face; and the one on top is a Buddha's face. With all these faces, Bodhisattva Perceiver of the World's Sounds keeps watch over the ten directions so that he can rescue all who are suffering. The "
Perceiver of the World's Sounds" (twenty-fifth) chapter of the Lotus Sutra depicts his compassion and ability to assume thirty-three forms, from that of a Buddha to a vajra -bearing god, with which to save living beings. The bodhisattva's eleven-faced form, however, is not one of those depicted in the sutra.