Cundi Statue / Five Color Oxidized Statue

Description

Cundi is a bodhisattva and an incarnation of the  Cundi Dharani. Cundī appears with eighteen arms on a lotus flower and is sometimes referred to as the “Goddess of the Seventy Million [Buddhas]”

According to the Cundī Dhāraṇī Sūtra, the dharani associated with Cundī is the following:

namaḥ saptānāṃ samyaksaṃbuddha koṭīnāṃ tadyathā

oṃ cale cule cundī svāhā

Cundī is depicted with eighteen arms, each wielding implements that symbolize upaya. Her eighteen arms also represent the eighteen merits of attaining Buddhahood as described in an appendix to the Cundī Dhāraṇī Sūtra.