杨柳观音与观音柳

Avalokitesvara Buddhisattva with the Willow-branch and Buddhisattva-willow

杨柳观音的原型是千手观音,但其形象建构,既吸收了其他观音造像的元素,又融汇了华严、天台的理论阐释。宋元以降,以"杨柳枝""净瓶""净水"意象群为中心创作的观音偈赞,不胜枚举。更值得注意的是,随着观音信仰的广泛流播,杨柳意象也染上了浓厚的佛教文化色彩,出现了佛化植物观音柳。

The prototype of Avalokitesvara Buddhisattva with the willow-branch is Thousand-hand Bodhisattva. This image construction process not only assimilated other Bodhisattva statue elements,but also intermingled the ideas of Huayan Sect and Tiantai Sect. These were a lot of Buddhist hymns about willow-branch,bottle with pure water or pure water since Song and Yuan Dynasty. More significantly,as the spread of Bodhisattva religion,the willow-branch imagery have embodied great touch of Buddhism culture,the buddhisattva willow as Buddhism plant appeared.