was somehow imported into the pantheon of the Mahayana from China or Central Asia, and he has, especially in the earlier descriptions, a certain pure and abstract quality which recalls the Amesha-Spentas of Persia.  But still his attributes are Indian, and there is little positive evidence of a foreign origin.  I-Ching is the first to tell us that the Hindus believed he came from China.[49] Hsuean Chuang does not mention this belief, and probably did not hear of it, for it is an interesting detail which no one writing for a Chinese audience would have omitted.  We may therefore suppose that the idea arose in India about 650 A.D.  By that date the temples of Wu-t’ai-Shan would have had time to become celebrated, and the visits paid to India by distinguished Chinese Buddhists would be likely to create the impression that China was a centre of the faith and frequented by Bodhisattvas.[50] We hear that Vajrabodhi (about 700) and Prajna (782) both went to China to adore Manjusri.  In 824 a Tibetan envoy arrived at the Chinese Court to ask for an image of Manjusri, and later the Grand Lamas officially recognized that he was incarnate in the Emperor.[51] Another legend relates that Manjusri came from Wu-t’ai-Shan to adore a miraculous lotus[52] that appeared on the lake which then filled Nepal.  With a blow of his sword he cleft the mountain barrier and thus drained the valley and introduced civilization.  There may be hidden in this some tradition of the introduction of culture into Nepal but the Nepalese legends are late and in their collected form do not go back beyond the sixteenth century.

After Avalokita and Manjusri the most important Bodhisattva is Maitreya,[53] also called Ajita or unconquered, who is the only one recognized by the Pali Canon.[54] This is because he does not stand on the same footing as the others.  They are superhuman in their origin as well as in their career, whereas Maitreya is simply a being who like Gotama has lived innumerable lives and ultimately made himself worthy of Buddhahood which he awaits in heaven.  There is no reason to doubt that Gotama regarded himself as one in a series of Buddhas:  the Pali scriptures relate that he mentioned his predecessors by name, and also spoke of unnumbered Buddhas to come.[55] Nevertheless Maitreya or Metteyya is rarely mentioned in the Pali Canon.[56]

He is, however, frequently alluded to in the exegetical Pali literature, in the Anagata-vamsa and in the earlier Sanskrit works such as the Lalita-vistara, the Divyavadana and Mahavastu.  In the Lotus he plays a prominent part, but still is subordinate to Manjusri.  Ultimately he was eclipsed by the two great Bodhisattvas but in the early centuries of our era he received much respect.  His images are frequent in all parts of the Buddhist world:  he was believed to watch over the propagation of the Faith,[57] and to have made special revelations to Asanga.[58] In paintings he is usually of a golden colour:  his statues, which are often gigantic,