I'm Denise Leidy. I'm the Ruth and Bruce Dayton Curator of Asian Art here at the Yale University Art Gallery.

I hope as you walk into the Asian galleries, even if you don't recognize this figure, that you understand immediately that it's a welcoming and serene being. It's made of wood, multiple pieces of wood, that have then been painted and gilded. It's dated 1168, and we know that it's a Buddhist deity because, even though it's Chinese, it's wearing Indian clothing. So the figure actually has a saronglike garment around the waist with an apron above it and then multiple scarves over the chest. This is clothing that derives from lay traditions in India and is only found in China in Chinese Buddhist art.

We also know that this is a bodhisattva and not a Buddha, because it's wearing this kind of clothing, because of its extremely relaxed position, and because it has a certain amount of jewelry on. By this time in the twelfth century in China, Buddhism is an enormously complicated religion, and bodhisattvas are among the most important deities within the Buddhist tradition. They are equally enlightened beings, just like the Buddhas, but they have chosen to remain accessible to the devout in the phenomenal world to help guide them.

We know precisely which bodhisattva this is because of the small Buddha that he wears in the headdress or crown in the front of his hair. This is a figure known as Guanyin in Chinese and Avalokiteshvara in Sanskrit. This is the single most important deity in Buddhist art anywhere in Asia, because Guanyin, or Avalokiteshvara, represents the virtue of compassion. And within the Buddhist tradition, compassion is the single most important practice. The caring for other people, he—he or she, because there's some question about that—actually looks down upon all of us and guides us.

We also know that this is a very Chinese form of Guanyin. This is not a form that's really important within Indian traditions, and that's because of the relaxed posture and the fact that it's seated on a rocky base. This tells us that this is a manifestation of the bodhisattva known as the Water-Moon manifestation. And the rocky base tells us that, at this point in time, Avalokiteshvara, or Guanyin, is actually seated in his personal Pure Land or paradise. This is a place that used to be in Tibet, near the Potala, where the Dalai Lama lives today, but somewhere around the tenth century, it mysteriously moved to an island off the east coast of China. And the idea with this kind of imagery is that very, very spiritually enlightened or advanced beings can generate an activity realm around themselves, which is a perfected world. And if you react to or meet that deity in this perfected world, you are in an environment that helps you seek enlightenment, a sort of deeper spiritual understanding that is the ultimate goal of Buddhism.