Arya Avalokitesvara Saving Beings from Avichi Hell
Samundra Man Shrestha, 2015
Gouache on cotton canvas
18.5 × 12.5 cm

© Samundra Man Shrestha

I have depicted Arya Avalokiteshvara’s essence as the embodiment of ultimate compassion and as the benevolent saviour even to those among the most unfortunate of hell worlds. The glorification of Arya Avalokiteshvara, the great Bodhisattva of compassion is extolled in detail in the important Mahayana text, the Karandavyuha Sutra. His sole task is to bring salvation to all sentient beings, to help all suffers, to save them from every distress, and to demonstrate infinite compassion even to those in hell. The second chapter of the text describes the Bodhisattva’s descent into the terrible realm of Avichi Hell to release the suffering of those unfortunate beings reborn in the hell realms. The text describes how the scorching heat of the realm of hell is immediately transformed into pleasant coolness; in place of the cauldron, in which millions of the damned have boiled, a refreshing lotus pool, the pushkarini, spontaneously appears with lotus flowers as large as chariot wheels, and this place of torture becomes an abode of pure joy. Legend has it, that when Avalokiteshvara enters hell and the world of the hungry ghosts, brilliant rays of light flood the dark realms, and all suffering is eliminated.

The left half of the painting is my imaginative depiction of the Avichi realm of hell, which is said to be surrounded by an iron wall on iron ground and encircled by iron mountains. Constant violent fires of scorching flame and suffocating smoke fill the air. A huge caldron filled with boiling water it is placed at the centre, in which hundreds of thousands of unfortunate beings whose karmic actions resulted in their rebirth in the Avichi are thrown inside and cooked to a pulp. The ongoing suffering is omnipresent: bodies writhe in pain, their open mouths issuing violent cries of death and dying. Miraculously, the benevolent saviour, Arya Avalokitesh, featured to the right, is engulfed in cooling water and a brilliant light that provides solace to the sufferers.

The painting echoes the textual references of the appearance of this luminous form: Arya Avalokitshvara appears in the form of a man, with twisted locks of hair, jata-mukutadharo, a body adorned with divine ornaments, divyalamkara, a bejewelled crown and a disposition of supreme loving kindness, luminous like a golden orb suvarna-bimba. The cooling blue nectar emanates from Avalokiteshvara’s gesture of benevolence, varadamudra, as he bears a pink lotus in his right hand. The texts narrate the event of a miracle, vikurvana, on witnessing the multi-coloured rays of light emitting from Avalokiteshvara’s body. Even Yama, the King of Death is agitated on seeing this magnificent form, when the raging fires of hells are all of a sudden cooled by his presence. Fourarmed Yama, featured to the top left, and shown riding his buffalovahana, or vehicle, bears witness to this extraordinary transformation.

In this miniature painting, measuring less than seven inches, I seek to convey a sense of monumentality by way of imagining the Avichi hell; the figures are dramatically depicted in various states of suffering in hell-scapes reminiscent of the 17th century Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. Arya Avalokiteshvara’s role as savior still comprises a part of the Newar Buddhist tradition in the form of Amoghapasha Lokeshvara.