Roku Kannon　六観音

KEY WORD :　art history / iconography

A group of six forms of *Kannon 観音, each of which is responsible for saving suffering sentient beings in one of the six realms *rokudou-e 六道絵. The basic idea appears in the MAKASHIKAN 摩訶止観 (Great Concentration and Insight; 594 ), one of three major texts of the Tendai 天台 Buddhism, and the six forms mentioned in this text were then matched with familiar forms of Kannon. In Shingon 真言 teachings, according to Ninkai 仁海 (1046), the set consists of *Shoukannon 聖観音 (for hell), *Senju Kannon 千手観音 (for hungry ghosts), *Batou Kannon 馬頭観音 (for animals), *Juuichimen Kannon 十一面観音 (for *Ashura 阿修羅), *Juntei 准胝 (for human beings), and *Nyoirin Kannon 如意輪観音 (for deities, *ten 天). In Tendai texts, *Fukuukenjaku Kannon 不空羂索観音 appears in place of Juntei. Juntei appears often in records, but seldom in extant examples of the Six Kannon. Images of the Six Kannon began to be made as offerings for the welfare of the dead and for personal salvation in the first half of the 10c. The Six Kannon appear in the most common form of the rokujikyou mandara 六字経曼荼羅 (see *mandara 曼荼羅) which, from the Heian period, was the focus of the Rokujikyouhou 六字経法, a Shingon ritual used particularly for sickness and childbirth. In the mandala the six forms of Kannon, often with their corresonding Sanskrit motifs *bonjimon 梵字文, surround a figure of *Shaka 釈迦 holding a golden wheel hourin 法輪. The group appears within a moon disc. Below the disc and to the sides are *Fudou 不動 and *Daiitoku Myouou 大威徳明王, and in the bottom center are six figures venerating a moon disc set on a rock.

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