Rare Antique Guanyin on a Deified Ox, China (16287)

Description

This extraordinary rare piece is a Popular Religion image of a bodhisattva seated on a round lotus throne with five arched and pointed petals atop a recumbent ox. It is a variant of Guanyin in royal ease “lalitsana”. Her right hand is held up in teaching “vitarka“mudra and the left rests in her lap. A glorious yet unusual image, as she is highlighted in vibrant gold on her crown and robes. Intricate designs adorn the lotus petals and ox’s saddle.

Images of a female bodhisattva on an ox are extremely rare, but a zoom Stanford University seminar by Meir Shaharat featured a similar carving of a bodhisattva seated on an ox. Shaharat links the bodhisattva concept to “draft animals” – beasts who participate in critical daily and agricultural activities including the horse, mule, donkey, and ox – that shows the strong integration of Buddhism and Taoism into rural Chinese traditions. Rural belief in the divinity of draft animals reached its heights in mid-19th century Qing Dynasty when the Horse King and fellow draft animals were widely worshiped in agrarian economies. Shahar found a rural Shanxi cult where devotees created the benevolent the Ox King (Niuwan) deity to express their dependence on and gratitude for draft animals who descended from Heaven to help help humanity as beasts of burden and sacrificed their bodies. As Shahar claims, “The joint worship of human and animal tutelary deities implies that people and their beasts of burden are equally vulnerable and similarly in need of divine protection.” The Ox King deity as a female bodhisattva is a syncretic deity, revered in peasant’s Popular Religion.

Rural Buddhists depict her as the benevolent Great Strength Bodhisattva who is committed to assist devotees as an animal companion while Taoists depict her as a divinity who is the incarnation of a star.

This rare provincial antique Chinese woodcarving is in very good condition considering its age and use with expected flaking and fading of paint and minor old insect damage. As indicated by the back cavity, it was consecrated and probably placed on a rural home or small temple altar along with other images. Mounted on a modern frosted Acrylic base, it will complement any decor.

Click here for VA Instagram Guanyin on a Deified Ox (16287LMK)

Sources

Meir Shahar, “Newly-Discovered Manuscripts of a Northern-Chinese horse King Temple Association, T’oung Pao, Vol. 105, Fasc. 1-2 (2019), pp. 183-228 (46 pages), https://www.jstor.org/stable/26735571

Meir Shahar, China Research Seminar Series (Michaelmas 2020), The Diving Ox: the Draft Animal as Incarnate Deity in Chinese Religion and Literature.