Sixteen Arhats Reach the Eastern Land
From the Ruben Museum collection, "Arhats Arriving in the Eastern Land" dates to the mid-19th century and depicts the arhats riding on Capricorn, the sea creature.
The painting "Arhats Arriving in the Eastern Land" (from a group of paintings) dates to the 19th century and belongs to the Rubin Museum collection. Its inscription reads: 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། Translated, this says the sixteen Arhats, the distinguished supreme lay practitioners, the Four Heavenly Kings as messengers, and the venerable High Monk—all holy beings crossing the ocean to the other shore—humbly bow to the King of Scriptures. The work is attributed to the first incarnation, the great Lin, Yexi Jiacuo (ཚེ་མཆོག་གླིང་ཡོངས་འཛིན་ཡེ་ཤེས་རྒྱལ་མཚན་; 1713-1793), and is catalogued as "The Arhats in the East" in a private collection from the late 18th century.
Treasures and mythical creatures lie hidden in the ocean, a natural landscape that separates the world's beings, and each kingdom's unique traits stem from the existence of this immense sea. The sixteen Arhats（अर्हत्；དགྲ་བཅོམ་）, residing in the secluded world, set off on their journey after the ruler of Han extended an invitation.
In Tibetan art history, the motif of "Arhats arriving in the Eastern world" has been a significant subject in painting since the 18th century—or even earlier. Yet a reading of the text alone would suggest this scene has no connection to the Himalayan region. The elders (स्थविरा；གནས་བརྟན་), having achieved enlightenment and escaped the cycle of rebirth, each employed their supernatural powers to cross oceans and journey thousands of miles, eventually reaching the Eastern world.
The praises of the Arhats composed by the Kashmiri master Kshepa Chhandra (1127-1225) do not include the well-known Han monk, whose playful and distinctive ethnic features appear in later works. In most present-day Tibetan paintings of the "Sixteen Arhats," the sixteen revered figures are accompanied by layman Damodara and the Han monk, both of whom serve as attendants and have intricate backgrounds.
The painting “The Sixteen Arhats: Jigme Gonpo”, held in the British Library and dating from the 9th century, shows a charming, ethnically distinctive figure. Yet he was not officially represented in Tibetan Arhats images until the 15th century, when he was invited to accompany the Arhats (or the Buddha) on a journey to the Eastern world.
Why did the Arhats go to the Eastern Land? Tibetan scriptures offer two explanations. This dwelling matches the description in the Kashmiri master's text. Its title in Tibetan is “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.
Yikyi Gyatso and Jiang Gongkangzhu Laitaiye （བློ་གྲོས་མཐའ་ཡས་；1813-1899） held that the Arhats traveled to the Eastern Land gladly, having accepted the invitations of its monarchs and Han monks. In contrast, Sangye Rabten （གྲགས་པ་ལེགས་གྲུབ་；1646-1708） and other scholars believed the Arhats went to the Han land for the conversion and salvation of beings, as that region was a place of wickedness and disorder.
Under this reading, the King of Sutras in the Han land—that is, the Eastern monarch—was believed to be Tang Emperor Taizong. Even though the theme of "Arhats arriving in the Eastern Land" occurs repeatedly in scriptures, a fully developed belief in the sixteen Arhats did not emerge until after 654 AD, the fifth year of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty. It was precisely that year when Xuanzang translated the "Sutra on the Meritorious Deeds of the Great Arhat Nirvāṇa" into Chinese.
Despite this, the Eastern Land, Arhats, and the ocean coexisted in Tibetan cultural imagination, possibly related to the diffusion of Arhat belief there, where Eastern and Western narratives were both present. During the mid-eighteenth century, Maureen Zarember wandered "In the Land of the Arhats in the East.
Behind the image, the Tibetan inscription shows that the 8th Karmapa, Jampal Gyatso (འཇམ་དཔལ་རྒྱ་མཚོ་; 1758–1804), acted as the sponsor. He served as a principal teacher to Harinanda, who authored numerous works on the Eight-Fold Path, and he likewise wrote many texts on that practice. The inscription also greets the Eastern monarch and the monks from the Han region who arrive to pay homage to the Arhats.
Published in 2004, Robert Linrot's (1951- ) "Joyful Earth and Feathers: The Connection between Tibetan Arhat Painting and the Han Region" observes that, unlike other Tibetan art themes, the Arhats' texts and images in Tibetan culture appear to share a lower degree of consistency in their dissemination process and content relevance.
The roots of the East transmission are extremely complex, with a series of legends attached to the royal dynasties. Generally, the origins of the "Arhat faith" in Tibet are summarized into three categories: the East, represented by Romo Zhoqing (10th century), who brought influences from the Tang and later dynasties; India's Kadam tradition, represented by Atisha (982-1055) and his disciple Dromtönpa (1004-1064); and the Kashmiri masters' oral transmission tradition from Central Asia.
Later Tibetan Arhat paintings are regarded as having their prototype in the "Sixteen Arhats from China" painted by Romo Zhoqing, or alternatively brought to Zhaiba Caves. The other two traditions directly shaped the subsequent Tibetan "Arhat faith" and its transmission, whereas the East transmission is linked to imagery such as the murals in Sakya monastery. In the lineage of Narthang monastery, the Kadam tradition is preserved, and there each successive head lama is believed to be the incarnation of an Arhat.
The Arhat scriptures composed by Kashmiri masters—who brought relics of the Buddha, and in some cases bodily remains, into Tibet—came to be regarded as the region's most hallowed religious texts and later provided the basis for subsequent iconographic scholarship. Building on this tradition, the Gelug, Sakya, and Kagyu orders further developed their doctrinal views on the Arhats, as reflected in "Practice Rituals of Buddha and Sixteen Arhats." The Rubin Museum holds "Buddha and the Sixteen Arhats Group Painting: Han Dynasty Monks," a work dating from the late 16th century.
Regarding the transmission of teachings, there was a certain balance among attendants and disciples of different ethnic backgrounds; however, the Arhat paintings of Tibet are strongly tied to the artistic traditions of the Central Plains, particularly those created during the Ming and Qing dynasties, as seen in works such as the Sixteen Arhats embroidered thangka housed in Ganden Monastery and the murals found in the main hall of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery. Yet this close connection does not imply that Arhat imagery in Tibet was expressed in only a single manner.
The core characters may be established by scriptures and "elemental images," yet variations in scenes and colors appear frequently. In artworks depicting "Arhats coming to the East," the imaginative realm of the "ocean" and the diverse sea-crossing mounts ridden by the Arhats jointly create an artistic tableau shaped by multiple cultural traditions. "The Arhats Arrive in the Eastern Land," a private collection dating to the late 18th century.
Salute the Sixteen Arhats, who ride upon Capricorn, the mystical sea creature, amid the varied strange beasts and supernatural beings dwelling in the ocean. Translated from Sorang Wangqing's blog.