6 PROF. SATIS CHANDRA VIDTABHtJSANA 



specially remarkable for the purity of their character and for their exertions to elevate 

 their brethren. They left family and children, cut off all worldly ties, and felt no attach- 

 ment for anything here ; yet at the same time worked as missionaries spreading with 

 utmost zeal the religion of Buddha among the masses of the people. 



It is probable that these sthaviras lived before the division of the Buddhist 

 Church into Northern and Southern schools, but they are at present specially remembered 

 and worsihipped by the Buddhists of the Northern School, viz., by those of Tibet, China, 

 Nepal, etc. Sthavira- worship was introduced from India into Khotan in the early 

 centuries after Christ. From Khotan it spread to China and thence into Tibet. We 

 read in Tibetan history {e.g., Pag-sam jon-zang, pp, 329—330) that a certain prince 

 of Khotan, who embraced Buddhism, was invited by the emperor Thezung of the Thang 

 dynasty to the capital of China early in the 7th century A.D. He introduced into China 

 a masque dance in which the Sixteen Sthaviras were represented. 1 



These Sthaviras were very well known in the head-quarters of Buddhism in the 7th 

 and following centuries. Even at the present day the Tibetan monks daily recite the 

 names of the Sixteen Sthaviras (gnas-brtan-hu-drug). A fairly full account of them 

 in Tibetan literature is given below : — 



q^qj ^q^q^ST^q-^^^i ^ Wq|^W3*3 W^'G^p | §^*f'l S'^PF^' 

 S'gR^pr^'^SW^ j q^-q-^-q^^-qQ^iETj | s^^'S^fqg wq"^^"3W 



* -%s ^s 



«|3i«V3rlv q'Qj'|<W qV^'Sl' W'Qs'v S^'W^P^'V WgN'M't* WWgV 5EW^a**l«iU' HQ TC l*i<V' 



( ^w^wf V^*rc* 



Pag-sam-jon-zang, p. 330, edited by Rai Sarat Chandra Das Bahadur, CLE). 

 Srljnana Atila, about 1042 A.D., is said to have made some predictions about the Sixteen Sthaviras at Snarthang in 

 Tibet. So we read : — 



^'3rqK]Q-B|i^N , )35]N''q3rs i ^qor^v'I'as'^N'sjsrVq'ac;' I 



-1 -° 



{Pag-sam-jon-zang, p. 329, Rai Sarat Chandra's edition) 

 2 (Gyah-gsel ajWQ'fiWQJ') Compiled from Sde-srid-sahs-rgyas-rgya.rntsho. Vide also Mdsad-brgya (3n»Vqi?) 

 by Lama Taranatha; Taranatha's Indian Buddhism ; Waddell's rtmi ism, pp, 376-78. 



