According to Taranatha, the Tibetan historian of Buddhism,[544] this worship goes back to Saraha or Rahulabhadra.  He was reputed to have been the teacher of Nagarjuna and a great magician.  He saw Amitabha in the land of Dhingkota and died with his face turned towards Sukhavati.  I have found no explanation of the name Dhingkota but the name Saraha does not sound Indian.  He is said to have been a sudra and he is represented in Tibetan pictures with a beard and topknot and holding an arrow[545] in his hand.  In all this there is little that can be called history, but still it appears that the first person whom tradition connects with the worship of Amitabha was of low caste, bore a foreign name, saw the deity in an unknown country, and like many tantric teachers was represented as totally unlike a Buddhist monk.  It cannot be proved that he came from the lands of the Oxus or Turkestan, but such an origin would explain much in the tradition.  On the other hand, there would be no difficulty in accounting for Zoroastrian influence at Peshawar or Takkasila within the frontiers of India.

Somewhat later Vasubandhu is stated to have preached faith in Amitabha but it does not appear that this doctrine ever had in India a tithe of the importance which it obtained in the Far East.

The essential features of Amidist doctrine are that there is a paradise of light belonging to a benevolent deity and that the good[546] who invoke his name will be led thither.  Both features are found in Zoroastrian writings.  The highest heaven (following after the paradises of good thoughts, good words and good deeds) is called Boundless Light or Endless Light.[547] Both this region and its master, Ahuramazda, are habitually spoken of in terms implying radiance and glory.  Also it is a land of song, just as Amitabha’s paradise re-echoes with music and pleasant sounds.[548] Prayers can win this paradise and Ahura Mazda and the Archangels will come and show the way thither to the pious.[549] Further whoever recites the Ahuna-vairya formula, Ahura Mazda will bring his soul to “the lights of heaven,"[550] and although, so far as I know, it is not expressly stated that the repetition of Ahura Mazda’s name leads to paradise, yet the general efficacy of his names as invocations is clearly affirmed.[551]

Thus all the chief features of Amitabha’s paradise are Persian:  only his method of instituting it by making a vow is Buddhist.  It is true that Indian imagination had conceived numerous paradises, and that the early Buddhist legend tells of the Tushita heaven.  But Sukhavati is not like these abodes of bliss.  It appears suddenly in the history of Buddhism as something exotic, grafted adroitly on the parent trunk but sometimes overgrowing it.[552]