[Footnote 868:  [Chinese:  ]]

[Footnote 869:  [Chinese:  ] See Levi and Chavannes’ two articles in J.A. 1916, I and II, and Watters in J.R.A.S. 1898, p. 329, for an account of these personages.  The original number, still found in a few Chinese temples as well as in Korea, Japan and Tibet was sixteen.  Several late sutras contain the idea that the Buddha entrusted the protection of his religion to four or sixteen disciples and bade them not enter Nirvana but tarry until the advent of Maitreya.  The Ta-A-lo-han-nan-t’i-mi-to-lo-so-shuo-fa-chu-chi (Nanjio, 1466) is an account of these sixteen disciples and of their spheres of influence.  The Buddha assigned to each a region within which it is his duty to guard the faith.  They will not pass from this life before the next Buddha comes.  Pindola is the chief of them.  Nothing is known of the work cited except that it was translated in 654 by Hsuan Chuang, who, according to Watters, used an earlier translation.  As the Arhats are Indian personalities, and their spheres are mapped out from the point of view of Indian geography, there can be no doubt that we have to do with an Indian idea, imported into Tibet as well as into China where it became far more popular than it had ever been in India.  The two additional Arhats (who vary in different temples, whereas the sixteen are fixed) appear to have been added during the T’ang dynasty and, according to Watters, in imitation of a very select order of merit instituted by the Emperor T’ai Tsung and comprising eighteen persons.  Chavannes and Levi see in them spirits borrowed from the popular pantheon.

Chinese ideas about the Lohans at the present day are very vague.  Their Indian origin has been forgotten and some of them have been provided with Chinese biographies. (See Dore, p. 216.) One popular story says that they were eighteen converted brigands.

In several large temples there are halls containing 500 images of Arhats, which include many Chinese Emperors and one of them is often pointed out as being Marco Polo.  But this is very doubtful.  See, however, Hackmann, Buddhismus, p. 212.]

[Footnote 870:  Generally they consist of Sakya-muni and two superhuman Buddhas or Bodhisattvas, such as O-mi-to (Amitabha) and Yo-shih-fo (Vaidurya):  Pi-lu-fo (Vairocana) and Lo-shih-fo (Lochana):  Wen-shu (Manjus-ri) and P’u-hsien (Samantabhadra).  The common European explanation that they are the Buddhas of the past, present and future is not correct.]

[Footnote 871:  [Chinese:  ] and [Chinese:  ] For the importance of Ti-tsang in popular Buddhism, which has perhaps been underestimated, see Johnston, chap.  VII.]

[Footnote 872:  I speak of the Old Imperial Government which came to an end in 1911.]

[Footnote 873:  [Chinese:  ]]

[Footnote 874:  De Groot, l.c. p.51.]

[Footnote 875:  See Kern’s translation, especially pp. 379 and 385.]