262 



THE EEV. W. ST. CLATR TISDALL, D.D., ON 



of our era. The former has been identified with the Hindu god 

 Siva, and also with the Sun. His name is by the Tibetans 

 translated " the Lord who looks,'* but it may more grammatically 

 denote " the Lord who is seen, the visible Lord." Another 

 rendering is "Lord of compassionate glances." It is of this rather 

 loose rendering that Dr. Richard gives a very unduly expanded 

 paraphrase in the passage we have just quoted. A modern 

 Xipalese inscription speaks of him as equivalent to Sakti, that 

 is to say to the Hindu personification of the feminine procreative 

 energy, a fact which shows that " The Chinese transformation of 

 Avalokita into a woman had probably been already effected in 

 India/'* To identify a deity of this kind with the Holy Spirit 

 hardly seems either accurate or reverent. Avalokitesvara is 

 apparently intended to represent the Buddha of the present, 

 while Maitreya is that of the future, and hence Amitabha that 

 of the past. Thus this and other m irages of a Tri-une God in 

 Buddhist Sculptures vanish on nearer approach. In the " Lotus 

 of the True Law," Avalokitesvara is superior to all other 

 Bodhisattvas except Manjusri, who appears to hold a rank equal 

 to his. " His real dwelling-place is in the Sukhakara.t the 

 Paradise of Amitabha, where he sits sometimes on the right 

 and sometimes on the leftj of Buddha." In this it is evident 

 that a great deal of the Mahayana form of Buddhism in 

 China is really imported from India, though its deities have 

 often been assimilated with native gods and goddesses. 



Amitabha " was§ in ancient times a Bhikshu called 

 Dharmakara.. . . Dharmakara . . . vowed that, when he reached 

 Buddhahood, he would have a ' Buddha-field ' wondrously blessed, 

 the Happy Land (Sukhdvati) : and that is why there flock to him 

 from all the ' Buddha-fields' the beings appointed to Xirvdna, 

 either as future Arhats or as Buddhas. It is with Amitabha 

 that those who are guilty, but possess the promise and potency 

 of deliverance, spent their period of probation in lotus-flowers ; 

 with him also the Bodhisattvas become prepared for their last 

 birth, by having good opportunities of going to visit, to honour, 

 and to listen to the Buddhas of all the worlds. . . . The Bodhi- 

 sattvas are not equal among themselves. In the heaven of 

 Amitabha there are two, Avalokita and Mahasthamaprapta, 

 almost as great and luminous as Buddha, who sit on thrones 



* L. de la Vallee Poussin in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 

 vol. i, p. 260. 



t Otherwise called Sukhdvati, 



I Poussin, at supra. § Ibid. 



