Nyoirin Kannon　如意輪観音

KEY WORD :　art history / iconography

Sk:Cintamanicakra. A form of *Kannon 観音, most often six armed and proffering a wish-fulfilling jewel *nyoi houju 如意宝珠 and holding up a wheel, rinpou 輪宝. Most characteristically, from the Heian period on, he sits on a lotus on top of a rock that rises from the sea. His left leg is in a cross-legged pose, while his right knee is raised, his right foot resting in his left foot. He wears a crown with a small image of *Amida 阿弥陀 set in it (see *kebutsu 化仏). In his left hands he holds a full blown lotus and a wheel, while another hand rests on the dais. One of his right hands holds the jewel, another a rosary, and he rests the elbow of the third on his knee. When the wheel is missing (the attributes are often separate) he appears to point up with one left hand. The Six-armed Nyoirin apears also in the Kannon section of the Matrix Mandala *Taizoukai mandara 胎蔵界曼荼羅, in which the deity is colored in gold. A number of different forms of Nyoirin exist, and he may be shown with from two to twelve arms. When two-armed, the deity does not hold a jewel and may be shown seated with his right leg crossed at the ankle over his pendant left leg, hanka shiyui 半跏思惟. For this reason the image of *Miroku 弥勒 in Chuuguuji 中宮寺, Nara, had been wrongly venerated as Nyoirin. In paintings, Nyoirin may figure as the main image of a *mandara 曼荼羅, and he may also be shown on a rock, standing for Kannon's paradise, that rises out of the sea. There are different opinions as to the meaning of the deity, but they may be summarized as a belief that he offers what one wants either in the world or in monastic life. The jewel represents wealth, wisdom, the aspiration to enlightenment, the Buddha-nature, the transmission, and the relic. The wheel is dominion, the way things are, and the Buddhist teaching. The eight spokes of the wheel refers to the eightfold path, which is elaborated in the precepts. Also, Nyoirin's six arms may be considered the forces that save in all the Six Realms rokudou 六道, or to represent the Six Kannon *Roku Kannon 六観音, for he is one of the Six Kannon, who saves the divinities *ten 天. He may be considered an esoteric version of *Shoukannon 聖観音. Nyoirin was worshipped as a deity who protected the life of the emperor. The well-known 9c wooden statue in Kanshinji 観心寺, Osaka, as well as the images at Murouji 室生寺, Nara and Kannouji 神呪寺, Hyougo prefecture, make a group of three masterpieces of Nyoirin images called San Nyoirin 三如意輪.

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