Buddhism Guard X Oriental Art: Five Hundred Arhats 五百羅漢

Arhat  羅漢

(Sanskrit: अर्हत arhat; Pali: arahant),

in Buddhism,

signifies a spiritual practitioner who

has realized certain high stages of attainment.

 

500 Arhats 五百羅漢

are the group of arhats who assembled to

recite the general teachings of the Buddha,

at the First Council,

which is said to have taken place shortly after

the Buddha went into nirvana.

The bodhisattvas assemble in order to

preserve the Mahayana teachings.

 

the number 'five hundred' indicates

a great number rather than actual headcount.

 

16 Arhats 十六阿羅漢 / 十六尊者

were actually part of

that first group of 500 (or great number) who

attended the First Council, but

they vowed to renounce nirvana in order to

devote themselves more effectively to

the relief of human misery, like bodhisattvas.

 

info taken from Maitreya Project

 

The 18 Arhats 十八羅漢

are depicted in Mahayana Buddhism as

the original followers of the Buddha who

have followed the Eightfold Path and

attained the Four Stages of Enlightenment.

 

They have reached the state of Nirvana and

are free of worldly cravings.

They are charged to protect the Buddhist faith and

to await on earth for the coming of

 

Maitreya 彌勒菩薩,

a prophesied enlightened Buddha to

arrive on earth many millennia after

Gautama Buddha's death and nirvana.

 

Ten Principal Disciples Of Buddha 十大弟子

the arhats originally composed of

only 10 disciples of Gautama Buddha,

 

although the earliest Indian sutras indicate

only 4 of them,

Pindola, Kundadhana, Panthaka and Nakula,

were instructed to await the coming of Maitreya.

 

Later this number increased to 16 to

include patriarchs and other spiritual adepts.

Teachings about the Arhats eventually made their way

to China where they were called Luohan 羅漢

 

but it wasn't until 654 AD when

the Nandimitrāvadāna Record on

the Duration of the Law,

spoken by the Great arhat Nadimitra, was

translated by Xuanzang 玄奘 into Chinese that

the names of these arhats were known.

 

Somewhere between the late Tang Dynasty and

early Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period of China

two other arhats were added to the roster

increasing the number to 18.

 

in short

the number does not really matter

more relevant is what does arhat actually means

 

and one more thing,

the term could vary based on

the respective schools and traditions,

mainly Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism

 

anecdotes

since 500 is more like a lump sum digit

rather than the exact persons in total

and people generally interpret arhat as

a respectable scholar 

there are some variants in terms of

the sculptures of a specific arhat

 

eg,

among the 500 Arhats in

the Bao Guan temple of Sichuan district

there are two respectable emperors of Qing Dynasty:

Kang Xi 康熙 and his grandson Qian Long 乾隆

and

and in some instances,

 

Marco Polo was depicted as the 100th Arhat

how about that?

 

---

Marco Polo?

during my recent visit to

one of the 500 Arhats halls

I was trying quite hard to

find the 100th Arhat, Marco Polo

 

but couldn’t find it

at first I thought it is because

there isn't any label of the names

 

damn… (oops sorry)

then now only I realized after some google-ing

the Marco Polo arhat statute has been

transferred to (stolen? looted? robbed? presented?)

Museo Correr in Venice

 

photos and from 舊影志

the Marco Polo sculpture,

China version in Museo Correr Venice

 

the Marco Polo sculpture among the arhats

during 1949, in Life magazine

 

however..

hey

the gestures of the two sculptures do

slightly differ from each other,

so which is which?

 

but at least

it does go on to prove one thing

Marco Polo has indeed been enlisted in the

hall of fame of 500 Arhats

 

---

500 Arhats Hall, Guangzhou 五百羅漢堂

is built in 1849 in

the 1400 years old

Hua Lin Temple in Guangzhou  華林禪寺，廣州

looks like this today

 

 

Maitreya 彌勒菩薩

recap:

a prophesied enlightened Buddha to

arrive on earth many millennia after

Gautama Buddha's death and nirvana

 

Skanda 韋陀尊者

is a Mahayana bodhisattva

who is a devoted guardian of Buddhist monasteries

 

Bodhidharma 達摩祖師

is traditionally credited as the transmitter of

Ch'an 禪 (Sanskrit: Dhyāna, Japanese: Zen)

to China, and regarded as

the first Chinese patriarch 祖師

 

Sarira Pagoda 舍利塔

built in 1701, to store

22 Buddha relics

 

is Bodhidharma one of the arhats?

supposedly nope

because.. he is

a Buddhist monk who lived during

the 5th/6th century CE

 

but who knows

if Marco Polo and Emperor Kangxi are there

that’s the fun part, isn’t it