Mahayana and Vajrayena Buddhist deity Avalokiteshvara is the bodhisattva of compassion.  A bodhisattva is a being who has attained the state of enlightenment but has not moved on to become a Buddha, choosing to assist others with finding the way to enlightenment. There are ten stages of a bodhisattva’s spiritual development. In one stage, bodhisattvas are no longer subject to the forces of natural laws and can assume any form they wish, be in several places at once, and move about at the speed of thought. Thus Avalokiteshvara has many manifestations. 

This statue shows one of the manifestations of Avalokiteshvara called Ekadasha-mahakarunika-Lokesvara who has eleven heads and eight arms.  Just as there are many manifestations of the bodhisattva himself, there are several versions of the legend explaining his eleven heads.  The main story line is this:

Ekadasha descended into hell with the intention of saving souls.  He brought a number of souls to the intermediate paradise, Sukhavait, discovering that for every soul he saved, another took their place.  Ekadasha’s head broke into ten pieces when he discovered the amount of evil in the world and the hopelessness of saving all mankind. Amitahba, Ekadasha’s father and one of the five transcendental Buddhas, then made a new head from each of the ten broken pieces and placed them on the body of his son. Nine of the faces are full of love with floral crowns, one face is evil with a crown of skulls, and the eleventh face on top is the head of Amitabha himself. 

In Buddhist imagery every position of the body and object held have a meaning.   On this statue, the nine heads, in sets of three, represent the world of desire, the world of living forms, and the world without form. Below are some of the hand positions, objects, and their meanings.