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.