In Southern Buddhist temples, the pure white image of Maitreya is sometimes found beside the idol representing Gautama or the historical Buddha.  While in Southern Buddhism the idea of this possibility of development seems to have been little seized upon and followed up, in Northern Buddhism as early as 400 A.D. the worship of two Buddhas elect named Manjusri and Avalokitesvara, or personified Wisdom and Power, had already become general.  Manjusri,[20] the Great Being or “Prince Royal,” is the personification of wisdom, and especially of the mystic religious insight which has produced the Great Vehicle or canon of Northern Buddhism; or, as a Japanese author says, the third collection of the Tripitaka was that made by Manjusri and Maitreya.  Avalokitesvara,[21] the Lord of View or All-sided One, is the personification of power, the merciful protector and preserver of the world and of men.  Both are frequently and voluminously mentioned in the Saddharma Pundarika,[22] in which the good law is made plain by flowers of rhetoric, and of which we shall have occasion frequently to speak.  Manjusri is the mythical author of this influential work,[23] the twenty-fourth chapter being devoted to a glorification of the character, the power, and the advantages to be derived from the worship of Avalokitesvara.

The Creation of Gods.

Possibly the name of Manjusri may be derived from that of the Indian mendicant, the traditional introducer of Buddhism and its accompanying civilization into Nepal.  The Tibetans identify him with the minister of a great King Strongstun, who lived in the seventh century of our era and who was the great patron of Buddhism into Tibet.  He is the founder of that school of thought which ended in the Great Vehicle,—­the literature of Northern Buddhism.[24] From Nepal to Japan, in the books of the Northern Buddhists there is certainly much confusion between the metaphysical being and the legendary civilizer and teacher of Nepal.  The other name, Avalokitesvara, which means the Lord of View, “the lord who looks down from on high,” instead of being a purely metaphysical invention, may he only an adaptation of one epithet of Shiva, which meant Master of View.

Later and by degrees the attributes were separated and each one was personified.  For example, the power of Avalokitesvara was separated from his protecting care and providence.  His power was personified as the bearer of the thunder-bolt, or the lightning-handed one; and this new personification added to the two other Buddhas elect, made a triad, the first in Northern Buddhism.  In this triad, the thunder-bolt holder was Vagrapani; Manjusri was the deified teacher; and Avalokitesvara was the Spirit of the Buddhas present in the church.  Before many centuries had elapsed, these imaginary beings, with a few others, had become gods to whom men prayed; and thus Buddhism became a religion with some kind of theism,—­which Gautama had expressly renounced.