The Arhat is a buddhist sage who has attained enlightenment.
In Theravada Buddhism, this is the highest attainment of the Buddha's disciples in their practice.
In Mahayana Buddhism, it is generally believed that the status of the arhats is in the third category after the Buddhas and bodhisattvas.
In Buddhism in China, there are sayings such as "eighteen arhats" and "five hundred arhats"; but as far as individual arhats are concerned, the most well-known in the folk are the descending dragon arhats and the Fuhu arhats.
Yuan Anon. "Eighteen Arhat Diagrams"
These two arhats are among the "eighteen arhats" and are the last two.
However, there have always been different accounts of who the names of the Descending Dragon Arhat and the Fuhu Arhat belong to.
This is mainly related to the formation of the "Eighteen Arhats", which evolved from "16+2".
In the Buddhist scriptures, there are only "four great arhats" and "sixteen arhats", and there is no "eighteen arhats".
The Sixteen Arhats were disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha. According to the scriptures, they were instructed by the Buddha not to enter nirvana, to dwell in the world permanently, to uphold the Dhamma, and to be offered to the world as a blessing for all sentient beings.
For example, the Northern Liang Daotai translation of the "Entry into the Mahayana" says: "His Holiness Bintou Lu, His Holiness Rahu Luo, and so on, sixteen other people heard loudly and scattered in Zhuzhu ... Guarding the Dharma. But none of them listed the names of the sixteen arhats.
The Western Jin Dynasty Zhu Dharma Protector's translation of the Maitreya Sutra says: "The Great Gaya Bhikkhus, the Juntu Bowl Sighing Bhikkhus, the Bintou Lu Bhikkhus, the Luoyun Bhikkhus, and the Ru and other four loudly heard that if they were not nirvana, they would not be as nirvana, and then they would be nirvana." Here the names of the "Four Great Arhats" are indicated.
Descend the Dragon Arhat
In the Tang Dynasty, Master Xuanzang translated the Book of Dharma--the full name of the Great Arhat Nanti Midora, which means "Qingyou", a senior monk in the Lion Kingdom (present-day Sri Lanka) eight hundred years after the Buddha's death—detailed the names and residences of the sixteen arhats.
After the translation of the Book of Dharma, the Sixteen Arhats were gradually revered by Middle-earth Buddhists. Around the fifth generation, two more Venerables were added, and the "Sixteen Arhats" evolved into the "Eighteen Arhats".
This evolutionary process is difficult to understand today.
Some scholars believe that this was formed to adapt to the auspicious number "eighteen" in Han China - Chinese culture likes to use the number "eighteen", such as "eighteen hou", "eighteen bachelors", "eighteen martial arts", etc., and rarely uses the number "sixteen", so people add two to the sixteen arhats and become eighteen arhats.
This is a concrete embodiment of the sinification of Buddhism!
The famous Buddhist scholar Zhou Shujia believes that the evolution from sixteen arhats to eighteen arhats is mainly caused by painting.
He pointed out: "The rise of the legend of the eighteen arhats has no classical basis, but because the painters painted two people in addition to the sixteen arhats, it became a habit, which led to various speculations and determinations of later generations. ”
Fu hu luohan
The first sixteen of the "Eighteen Arhats" are from the Book of Dharma, written by His Holiness Qingyou and translated by Master Xuanzang, and are hardly controversial; the more controversial are the two arhats added later, and there are many theories.
Later, people gave the Eighteen Arhats Chinese names according to traditional Chinese customs, replacing the Chinese translation names in the Fazhu, such as the first Venerable Bindu Luoba Luo Lazy, called "Sitting Deer Arhat", the fifteenth Arshido, called "Long-brow Arhat", and so on.
The last two Venerables are the "Descending Dragon Arhat" and the "Fuhu Arhat".
Since the last two of the Eighteen Arhats have many theories, there are also many theories about who the Descending Dragon Arhat and the Fuhu Arhat are.
The Book of Dharma Dwellings
1. Su Shi, a great scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty, once praised the eighteen arhat figures of the famous monk Guan Xiu in the five dynasties of the late Tang Dynasty, each of which marked the name of the arhat, of which the seventeenth was His Holiness Qingyou, that is, the author of the Book of Dharma, and the eighteenth was His Holiness Bintou Lu, which was actually a short translation and re-emergence of the first Venerable Bindu Luoba luo lazy.
According to this, the Descending Dragon Arhat is the Qingyou Venerable, and the Fuhu Arhat is the Bintou Lu Venerable.
2. As for Su Shizhi's statement, people felt that there was a problem, believing that Qingyou was the one who made the Fa Zhu Ji and should not be among the dwellers; and Bintou Lu repeated it.
The Southern Song Dynasty monk Zhi Pan wrote the Chronicle of the Buddha's Reign and argued that the last two of the eighteen arhats should be His Holiness The Dalai Lama and His Holiness the King Tu Po, that is, the two of the "four great arhats" mentioned in the aforementioned Maitreya Sutra that are not among the sixteen arhats.
According to this, the descending dragon arhat is the Gaya Venerable, and the Fuhu Arhat is the Juntu Bowl Sighing Venerable.
Five Generations of Guanxiu "Sixteen Arhats"
3. In the Qing Dynasty, after consulting the then Zhangjia Living Buddha, the Qianlong Emperor wrote that the seventeenth descending dragon Arhat was His Holiness the Gasha Rapa (i.e., His Holiness the Gaya), and the eighteenth Fuhu Arhat was His Holiness the Natamita Lama (i.e., His Holiness Maitreya).
Since it was the emperor who approved it, the Qing Dynasty mostly took the descending dragon arhat as the Jiaye Venerable and the Fuhu Arhat as the Maitreya Venerable.
4. In the late Qing Dynasty divine and demonic novel "The Complete Biography of Jigong", it is said that Jigong is the reincarnation of the descending dragon Arhat.
Because the image of Jigong is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and has a great influence, many people think that the descending dragon Arhat is Jigong.
Any
In short, due to the popularity of the eighteen arhats, even the main halls of various monasteries often sculpted eighteen arhats, and the original sixteen arhats were not used.
The last two statues added, the Descending Dragon Arhat and the Fuhu Arhat, have not yet been unified due to their diverse theories.
-Ends-
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