Guan Yin or Kwan Yin?

Question

I have a stone statue that is said to be Guan yin except she has three heads with a buddha head on top of hers. An appraiser said someone just probably took the idea of guan yin and threw stuff together to make a statue. Is there such thing as a three headed guan yin? I really need your help. Anything would be great. Thank You

Answer 1

None that i know of.
Goddess of Mercy (Guan Yin) took many forms as a goddess.

But i do know of the Tibetian believe of Guan Yin to have thousand hands and i think 10 faces... or was it 11 (cant remember the exact figure but its surely more than 3).
Just for your info.

Answer 2

I too have never seen a statue of 'Guan Yin (Pu Sa)' with three heads. I have only seen the Chinese statues, which all only have one head. I think you need to find another appraiser, it could be very unique, but I cannot be sure.

Answer 3

If you're asking about the name, both are correct. They are both transliterations from the original Chinese name, which of course was not written in our alphabet. The Chinese languages also use consonants that are somewhat different from ours, thus leading to slightly differing versions in our writing. "Tao" is just as correct as "Dao", since the first sound isn't exactly a "t" or a "d", but somewhere between. Same for the "g"/"k" sound in the goddess's name - the original sound isn't exactly either of them, but somewhere between. These kinds of problems are inevitable when translating from languages that are very different from European language, either in sound or meaning or writing styles.