The Wisdom King Aizen (Aizen Myōō)
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Aizen Myōō is a wrathful deity, as suggested by his fearsome expression, his red skin, the bow and arrow he holds in two of his six hands, and the roaring lion’s head he wears as a crown. Aizen—the two characters of whose name mean, literally, “dyed in love”—is, in fact, a force for good in Esoteric Buddhism. Practitioners pray to him to transform human desires, especially sexual ones, into powerful spiritual energy that, through ritual, can be harnessed to help them escape suffering. Backed by a variegated halo within an orb of red flames, the deity sits atop a multitiered lotus pedestal that hovers above delicately swirling gold clouds and is decorated with an image of dragons emerging over a rough sea. Aizen is surrounded by a proliferation of red, blue, green, and white wish-fulfilling jewels (hōju), a sign of this deity’s devotion to the needs of the faithful.
Asian Art
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.