The Sixteen Arhats Arrive in the East China

The Sixteen Arhats Arrive in the East China

"Arhats Arriving in the Eastern Land"
From the collection of the Ruben Museum, mid-19th century.
The arhats rode on the sea creature Capricorn.
"The Arhats in the East"
Private Collection in the Late 18th Century

དགྲ་བཅོམ་གནས་བརྟན་བཅུ་དྲུག་མཆོག།

དགེ་བསྙེན་དྷརྨ་ཏཱ་དང་རྒྱལ་ཆེན་བཞི།

ཕོ་ཉ་འཕགས་པ་ཧྭ་ཤང་བཅས།

རླབས་ཕྲེང་བརྒལ་ཏེ་ཕ་རོལ་ཕྱིན།

གཙུག་ལག་རྒྱལ་པོས་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ།

The sixteen Arhats, distinguished and supreme
Lay practitioners and the Four Heavenly Kings
Messengers, the venerable High Monk
All the holy beings crossing the ocean to the other shore
Humbly bow to the King of Scriptures
The first incarnation, the great Lin, Yexi Jiacuo
（ཚེ་མཆོག་གླིང་ཡོངས་འཛིན་ཡེ་ཤེས་རྒྱལ་མཚན་；1713-1793）
"Arhats Arriving in the Eastern Land" (belonging to a group of paintings)
From the collection of the Rubin Museum, 19th century.
Hidden in the ocean are treasures and mythical creatures, it is a natural landscape used to separate beings in the world, and every kingdom has its own unique features due to the existence of this vast sea. After receiving an invitation from the ruler of Han, sixteen Arhats（अर्हत्；དགྲ་བཅོམ་） living in the secluded world began their journey. Crossing the seas and traveling thousands of miles, these elders （स्थविरा；གནས་བརྟན་）who have attained enlightenment and escaped the cycle of reincarnation each displayed their supernatural powers, ultimately arriving in the Eastern world. Based solely on the description in the text, this scene seems unrelated to the Himalayan region. However, in Tibetan art history from the 18th century (or even earlier), the theme of "Arhats arriving in the Eastern world" has become a profound subject in painting. In most contemporary Tibetan paintings of the "Sixteen Arhats," in addition to the sixteen revered figures, there are also layman Damodara and the Han monk. The latter two, as attendants of the Arhats, have complex origins. The well-known Han monk with his playful and distinct ethnic features did not appear in the Arhats praises written by the Kashmiri master Kshepa Chhandra (1127-1225). This charming and ethnic-characterized figure did not officially appear in Tibetan Arhats images until the 15th century when he was invited to travel to the Eastern world with the Arhats (or alongside the Buddha).
"The Sixteen Arhats: Jigme Gonpo"
From the 9th century, held in the British Library.
Title in Tibetan

“འཕགས་པ་ཉན་ཐོས་ཆེན་པོའི་དུས་ལྡན།

འཁོར་སྟོང་ཆིག་བརྒྱ།  གོ་བཞི།”

"Glorious and noble Venerable Jvalamalini
With ten thousand attendants, residing in the fourth quadrant."
This dwelling corresponds to the description in the text written by the Kashmiri master.

Why did the Arhats go to the Eastern Land? Two explanations are provided in Tibetan scriptures. Scholars like Sangye Rabten（གྲགས་པ་ལེགས་གྲུབ་；1646-1708）and others believed that the Arhats went to the Han land to convert and save beings as the Eastern Land was a sinful and chaotic world（སྡིག་ཅན་གནས་）. On the other hand, scholars like Yikyi Gyatso and Jiang Gongkangzhu Laitaiye（བློ་གྲོས་མཐའ་ཡས་；1813-1899）believed that the Arhats went to the Eastern Land joyfully in response to invitations from Eastern monarchs and Han monks. In this interpretation, the Eastern monarch refers to the King of Sutras in the Han land, who was believed to be Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty.

Although the motif of "Arhats arriving in the Eastern Land" appears repeatedly in scriptures, the systematic belief in the sixteen Arhats only began to take shape after 654 AD (the fifth year of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty). It was in this year that Xuanzang translated the "Sutra on the Meritorious Deeds of the Great Arhat Nirvāṇa" into Chinese. Despite this, the imagination of the Eastern Land, Arhats, and the ocean coexisted in Tibetan culture, possibly related to the dissemination of the belief in Arhats in the region, where both Eastern and Western narratives were present.

"In the Land of the Arhats in the East"
In the mid-eighteenth century, Maureen Zarember wandered.

The Tibetan inscription behind the image indicates that
it was sponsored by the 8th Karmapa, Jampal Gyatso (འཇམ་དཔལ་རྒྱ་མཚོ་；1758-1804),
who was a core teacher of the author of many texts on the practice
of the Eight-Fold Path, Harinanda, and composed many texts on the
practice of the Eight-Fold Path.
Welcome to the Eastern monarch and the monks from the Han region who come to pay tribute to Arhats.
Title: "Joyful Earth and Feathers: The Connection between Tibetan Arhat Painting and the Han Region"
Author: Robert Linrot (1951- )
Published in 2004
Unlike other themes in Tibetan art, the text and images of the Arhats in Tibetan culture do not seem to have a high degree of unity in terms of dissemination process and content relevance. The origins of the "Arhat faith" in Tibet are generally summarized into three categories, represented by the East, such as Romo Zhoqing (10th century) who brought influences from the Tang and later dynasties, by Atisha (982-1055) and his disciple Dromtönpa (1004-1064) representing the Kadam tradition from India, and by the Kashmiri masters with their oral transmission tradition from Central Asia. The roots of the East transmission are very complex, with a series of legends attached to the royal dynasties. The "Sixteen Arhats from China" painted by Romo Zhoqing (or brought to Zhaiba Caves) is considered the prototype for later Tibetan Arhat paintings.

The East transmission is related to images (such as murals in Sakya monastery), while the other two traditions directly influence the subsequent Tibetan "Arhat faith" and its inheritance. The Kadam tradition is preserved in the lineage of Narthang monastery, where each successive head lama is considered the incarnation of an Arhat. Subsequently, the Gelug, Sakya, and Kagyu schools refined the belief system regarding the Arhats ("Practice Rituals of Buddha and Sixteen Arhats"). The Kashmiri masters brought relics of the Buddha (or even some remains) to Tibet, making their religious texts on Arhats the most revered classics in Tibet and the basis for later iconography studies.

"Buddha and the Sixteen Arhats Group Painting: Han Dynasty Monks"
From the late 16th century, in the collection of the Rubin Museum.

Attendants and disciples from different ethnicities
Compared to the balance in terms of the transmission of teachings, the paintings of the Arhats in Tibet are closely linked to the artistic styles of the Central Plains, especially the works from the Ming and Qing dynasties (such as the Sixteen Arhats embroidered thangka in Ganden Monastery and the murals in the main hall of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery). However, this does not mean that the Arhat images in Tibet are expressed in a single way. While the core characters are fixed by texts and "elemental images", innovations in scenes and colors are common. In the artistic works related to "Arhats coming to the East", the imaginative space of the "ocean" and various sea-crossing objects ridden by the Arhats together construct an artistic scene under the overlay of multiple cultural contexts.
"The Arhats Arrive in the Eastern Land"
At the end of the 18th century, a private collection.
The Arhats rode on the mystical sea creature Capricorn

Various strange beasts and supernatural beings in the ocean.

Salute the Sixteen Arhats.

This article is translated from Sorang Wangqing's blog.

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