A group of six forms of *Kannon 観音, each of which is responsible for saving suffering sentient beings in one of the six realms *rokudō-e 六道絵. The basic idea appears in the Makashikan 摩訶止観 (Great Concentration and Insight, 594), one of three major texts of Tendai 天台 Buddhism, and the six forms mentioned in this text were then matched with familiar forms of Kannon. In Shingon 真言 teachings, according to Ningai 仁海 (951-1046), the set consists of *Shōkannon 聖観音 (for hell), *Senju Kannon 千手観音 (for hungry ghosts), *Batō Kannon 馬頭観音 (for animals), *Jūichimen Kannon 十一面観音 (for *Ashura 阿修羅), *Juntei 准胝 (for human beings), and *Nyoirin Kannon 如意輪観音 (for deities *ten 天). In Tendai texts, *Fukūkenjaku Kannon 不空羂索観音 appears in place of Juntei. Juntei appears often in records, but seldom in extant examples of the Six Kannon. Images of the Six Kannon began to be made as offerings for the welfare of the dead and for personal salvation in the first half of the 10th century. The Six Kannon appear in the most common form of the rokujikyō mandara 六字経曼荼羅, which, from the Heian period, was the focus of the Rokujikyōhō 六字経法, a Shingon ritual used particularly for sickness and childbirth. In the *mandara 曼荼羅 the six forms of Kannon, often with their corresponding Sanskrit motifs *bonjimon 梵字文, surround a figure of *Shaka 釈迦 holding a golden wheel hōrin 法輪. The group appears within a moon disc. Below the disc and to the sides are *Fudō Myōō 不動明王 and *Daiitoku Myōō 大威徳明王, and in the bottom center are six figures venerating a moon disc set on a rock.