Vast, however, as is the power attributed to Amitabha, and great as is the merit to be acquired by the invocation of his name, there is found in the temples in which he is worshipped an image which receives even more veneration than his. That colossal female effigy, with the many heads and countless hands, before which a number of votaries, composed largely of women, are kneeling in prayer, is meant to represent the mighty Avalokitesvara, or—to substitute for the Sanskrit the less formidable titles by which she is known in China and Japan,—the all-powerful Kwanyin or Kwannon. Here, again, we are confronted with a devotion the origin of which is wrapped in uncertainty, but which, closely connected with the doctrine of the Western Paradise, seems to have arisen some three centuries after the commencement of our era. At the present day, it is spread extensively over Thibet, Mongolia, China, and Japan; but it is unknown to the countries of Southern Buddhism. With regard to the meaning of this great image before us, Kwannon is commonly explained to be the reflex or spiritual son of Amitabha Buddha, sent by him to earth to preside on earth over the Buddhist faith, and appearing, at first in male and subsequently in female shape. But the probability is that the various personages, with whom Kwannon is supposed to be identified, had merely a fictitious existence; and that in her statues, we see simply an apotheosis of Mercy, an allegorical _Mater Misericordiae_, whose many eyes and hands are intended to signify the unremitting vigilance and the untiring energy with which she ministers to all sorrow and distress.(20)