Inori no Mori祈りの杜working title

Kannon (bodhisattva)

Senju Kannon

千手観音せんじゅかんのん

An illustration of Senju Kannon created for this site
An original illustration made for this site.

Senju Kannon, also called Senju Sengen Kanzeon Bosatsu, is a Kannon who finds people's suffering with many eyes and seeks to save them with many hands. The number one thousand expresses the breadth of that salvation. Many different ways of helping are also entrusted to the objects held.

This introduction is based on materials from Shōhōin (Tobi Fudō). It is summarized within the scope of the beliefs and traditions those materials convey, and does not present explanations or customs common to all schools, shrines, and temples.

English pages are the site’s own translations of its Japanese pages. The sources cited are in Japanese. 日本語で読む

Visit an online temple

Broad compassion expressed by a thousand hands and eyes

Senju Kannon, also called Senju Sengen Kanzeon Bosatsu, is a Kannon who finds people's suffering with many eyes and seeks to save them with many hands. The number one thousand expresses the breadth of that salvation. Many different ways of helping are also entrusted to the objects held.

Source: 飛不動尊 正宝院

Expressing a thousand workings with forty-two arms

Besides statues actually made with a great many hands, the forty-two-armed type is well known. The Nara National Museum explains that the forty hands other than the two central ones each save twenty-five worlds. It is a form expressing not only the visible number of arms but a compassion that reaches a wide world.

Source: 奈良国立博物館

Guardians surrounding Kannon and those who pray

The Twenty-eight Attendants are sometimes placed around Senju Kannon. They are said to protect not only Kannon but also the people who have faith in Kannon. Kannon, who saves people, and the guardians who support that teaching are represented as one group.

Source: 奈良国立博物館

Mantra (in Japanese, as written in the sources)

おん ばざらたらま きりく。

Source: 飛不動尊 正宝院

Shown as written in the Japanese sources. This site does not set how or how many times to recite it.

Related shrines and temples

Related kami and buddhas

Sources (in Japanese)