This paper discusses the religious, cultural, and political backgrounds in which a particular form of a bodhisattva image in the Long Roll of Buddhist Images of the Dali Kingdom (大理國梵像卷, hereafter Long Roll ) was called zhenshen (眞身, true body). Focusing on the ways in which the Long Roll employed the notion of zhenshen in order to reshape the prestige of the Dali kingdom (937-1254), it aims to illuminate one of the aspects of medieval Buddhists’ reception of their sacred images. Currently in the collection of the Palace Museum in Taipei, the Long Roll , measuring approximately nineteen meters long, is a handscroll painting attributed to an otherwise unknown artisan Zhang Shengwen ( 張勝溫) during the reign of emperor Lizhen(r. 1172- 1200) of the Dali. Composed of one hundred thirty six frames, this painting is an extensive collection of the divinities in the Buddhist pantheons which seem to have been worshiped in the twelfth-century local kingdom located in the southwestern part of China. The particular focus of this paper is an Avalokiteśvara image in the scroll, which is labeled as the zhenshen Guanshiyin pusa (眞身觀世音菩薩, The True Body of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara). From the distinctive hair style with a crown to the lower garment tied in the manner of an Indian dhoti , the formal characteristics of the image are those of the Southeast Asian sculptural traditions. Besides the pictorial representation, a number of gilt bronze statues of the same form survive, attesting to the popularity of the image during the medieval period. In order to answer why the particular form of Avalokiteśvara image was referred to as zhenshen , this paper first examines the Illustrated History of Nanzhao (南詔圖傳, hereafter Illustrated History), which relates the legend of the icon’s birth. It also discusses the Nanzhao's political and religious stance against Tang China couched in the Illustrated History , and connects it with the reason why the statue displays Southeast Asian style. Then, this paper moves on to the examination of how the pictorial representations of the image shifted in the Long Roll . By reading closely the ways in which the image is illustrated in the new context, I suggest that the double nature of the image (statue cum manifestation of Avalokiteśvara) enabled those who designed the Long Roll to represent it both as the representations of a preexisting statue and a deity with f lesh body. With these observations, I finally argue that the notion of zhenshen was employed in the Long Roll in order to elevate the ontological status of the particular form of the image, and through this, the prestige of the Dali’s Buddhist visual culture.