Alchi Monastery Three Story Hall: Eleven-Headed, Twenty-Two-Armed Avalokitesvara

INDIA, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh

This mural is located above the niche containing the statue of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva on the west wall of the second story of the Three Story Hall. The eleven heads of Avalokitesvara are arranged in five rows and surrounded by a red nimbus. There are three heads in the first three rows, and one in the fourth. The head of Amitabha Buddha is at the top. An angular blue pattern runs along the top of the nimbus and aureole of the Bodhisattva. Avalokitesvara has broad shoulders, a slender waist, and an urna between the eyebrows. A stole and strings of beads hang down from the arms to the ankles. Four of the hands form mudras in front of the chest, while the top left and right hands hold a bell and a vajra. The rest of the hands either hold an object or form a mudra. The Bodhisattva stands on a lotus pedestal in tribhanga posture with the feet pointing out to the sides.
Avalokitesvara is flanked by two attendants with full chests and slender waists. Standing on inverted lotus pedestals, they both hold prayer beads and wear diaphanous, tight garments decorated with complex ornamentation. Above the attendants, there are two seated Buddha images, possibly depictions of manifestations of Amitabha Buddha. Beside Avalokitesvara’s nimbus, two apsaras wearing crowns and making music ride on spiraling clouds.