Quan Am - Sugar Land, TX
Posted by: 
WalksfarTX
N 29° 40.270 W 095° 37.038
15R E 246694 N 3285214
Quan Am, the female Buddhist deity exemplifying compassion and mercy for the distressed. Devotees look to Quan Am for guidance, fertility and protection.
Waymark Code: WMVQ7N
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 05/17/2017
Views: 2
The sculptress, Mai Chi, is a self-trained Vietnamese artist. Quan Am overlooks the gardens and a small pond. At 72 feet tall, it is among the tallest statues in America.
Travelfish.Org
Quan Am is considered a ‘descendent’ of sorts of the ‘original’ bodhisattva of compassion, Avolokiteshvara, a male or sometimes androgynous icon that originated in India with a Sanskrit name which means “he who looks upon the world with compassion”. In India and Tibet, Avolokiteshvara has retained its original male identity (the Dalai Lama is believed by Tibetans to be a reincarnation of him), but in seventh to 11th century China the icon transformed into a female goddess figure, Kuan Shih Yin (literally: observer of the cries of the world), or Kuan Yin for short. In time, this female version of the bodhisattva of compassion was embraced by the rest of Mahayana east Asia, including Vietnam.
Quan Am is more commonly depicted as a graceful woman holding a willow branch, which represents healing, and a vase turned upside down, signifying how she actively cleanses and purifies — at least that’s one perceived significance but there are others. In Vietnam and other east Asian countries, there can be no overstating her popularity. Eight of the 15 largest Buddhist statues in the world are depictions of Kuan Yin.