IMAGES OF THE female bodhisattva Guanyin aren't unusual in Hong Kong. Revered by Buddhists and Taoists alike, representations of the merciful and compassionate figure often turn up in vegetarian restaurants and in Buddhist pamphlets about food, among other places.
But Guanyin is an exception in Buddhism, whose imagery is almost exclusively male. Second-century Indian Buddhist Nargarjuna said bodhisattvas - beings who aren't yet buddhas, but have progressed far on the road to enlightenment - had to be male. Nirvana apparently wasn't open to women back then.
As Female Buddhas: Women of Enlightenment in Himalayan Art, an exhibition at New York's Rubin Museum of Art, makes clear, that stricture wasn't adhered to as the centuries passed. Senior curator Jeff Watt, an expert in the art of the Himalayas, has assembled 50 paintings and sculptures showing that in some regions female buddhas and bodhisattvas were venerated. Watt expanded the show to include female deities from two co-existing religions: India's Hinduism and Tibet's little-known Bon religion, a once-pagan form of worship that grafted on Buddhist aspects. The result is a veritable pantheon of female goddesses.
Centrepieces of the exhibition are paintings of the Tibetan Buddhist goddess of compassion, Tara, whose name translates as Star. Tara has a serene and happy smile, and appears strong and sympathetic in paintings and sculptures alike. Buddhists say she was born from the tears of the buddha Avalokiteshvara, who wept when he saw the suffering of humankind. A variation says she sprang from a lotus that formed in a lake of Avalokiteshvara's tears. Tara is, unusually for a woman, a buddha - one who has gained full spiritual enlightenment - rather than a bodhisattva.
'Tara is a very open character and very understanding,' says Watt. 'She's the perfect mother who's willing to accept anything and loves her child unconditionally. Buddhist gods like Tara are an ideal - they don't have ordinary emotions like Hindu deities. Hindu gods really embrace human emotions. They understand that emotions interfere with everything, both on an ordinary level and a heavenly level. Hindu gods are terribly frail - they're a reflection of our reality. But Buddhist gods like Tara aren't reflections of us. They're ideals that we can aspire to and learn from.'
Tara's hands have significance, says Watt. 'This is Tara's typical pose. The right hand is extended across the knee with the palm open, while the left hand is up over the heart holding the stem of a lotus which blossoms at the left ear. The gesture signifies generosity in India. It means helping. It means giving. It's a hand that is outstretched to grab your hand or to give you something that you need. There's also a slight variation which denotes giving protection. This pose is prescribed - the artist didn't make it up. It's how it's described in the manuals, which are attributed to the historic Buddha.'
One painting of Tara is surrounded by this pose, in miniature, 1,008 times. 'The number 108 is often considered special for Buddhists for various reasons,' says Watt. 'And 1,008 is also special. It's considered meritorious to copy images in Buddhism. Every Buddhist text says that if you copy, then you accrue merit. So copying helps you on your way to enlightenment, to Nirvana. If you make a big picture, you're going to get a lot of merit. But if you make 1,008 copies, you get so much more merit. That's what these types of paintings are about. It's not the artist who gets the merit, because he doesn't decide what to paint. The majority of it goes towards the person who commissions the work.'