The Rosary-bearer Guanyin (Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion) was related to the cult of Guanyin flourished in the Song Dynasty, covering the Northern to the Southern Song Dynasties. This icon was derived from the Thousand-hand Thousand-eye Guanyin popular in the Tang Dynasty and its iconography was closely associated with one of the forty Item-Bearers of the Thousand-hand Thousand-eye Guanyin. The iconography of Guanyin began to be modified as its belief became popular, and the White-robed Guanyin came into being; the Rosary-bearer Guanyin was therefore inseparable from the White-robed Guanyin. There are five images of the Rosary-bearer Guanyin in all, located in Niche 180 of Beishan (North Mountain), Niche 4 of Miaogao Shan (Marvelous High Mountain), Niche 6 of Shimen Shan (Stone Gate Mountain), and Niche 136 and Niche 125 at Fowan (Buddhist Bay) of Beishan (North Mountain). The politics, economy, society, and culture in Sichuan nurtured the growth of the Rosary-bearer Guanyin, and the essence of Song culture helped foster its feminine morphology. The thesis first expounds the iconographic significance of the Rotary-bearer Guanyin by referring to the Buddhist sutras, and then discusses the relationship between the cave formation and image allocation, to be followed by demonstrating the iconographic relationship between the Rosary-bearer Guanyin and the White-robed Guanyin.
