just as in the account of Peratae and other Gnostics, given in the "Philosophumena," the Christ is manifested, in many forms and characters, with the Birth at Bethlehem among them, to give expression to the mercy of His Father. Avalokites'vara (the "Lord that looked down") descended even into Hell to manifest the mercies of Amitabha; his companion Mahasthamaprapta is the embodiment of Amitabha's strength, the Spirit of Might, and the three together are a significant shadow of the Persons of the Christian Trinity. It is hard to avoid drawing an inference.

Footnotes

^117:1 Nanjo, "Catalogue of the Tripitaka," Appendix II.

^119:1 This and the following paragraphs I take from a kind review of my book "The Wheat amongst the Tares," published in The Anglican (Shanghai, June, 1909) by the late Mr. T. W. Kingsmill. See also East and West for July, 1911.

^120:1 I quote another passage from Mr. Kingsmill's essay, because it seems to throw some light on the origin of that remarkable Trinity--Amida, Seishi, Kwannon, which plays such an important part in the later developments of the Mahayana. He traces the origin of these ideas to the religion of Parthia during the Arsacid sovereigns, a theory not at all inconsistent with the few traces we get of the worship of Amida in the time of Anshikao and his brother translators.

^122:1 I have already pointed out that the character for Fo or Butsu () consists of three elements, "man," "arrows," "bow"--a reminiscence of Ming-ti's Vision, which bears a striking analogy to the three first letters of our Lord's name. But the symbols for "arrows" and "bow" () are also used in combination, e.g. in translating the name S'ariputra into Chinese, as an equivalent for the Sanskrit word putra, "a son." Bearing this in mind, we shall see that the addition of the element "man" (), which completes the whole compound (), produces a word which may mean "Son of Man." See the Sutra on the True Man (Nanjo, "Cat. Trip.," No. 565).

^123:1 Nanjo, "Cat. Trip.," Nos. 451, 478.

^123:2 In a lecture delivered before the Asiatic Society of Japan, in April, 1910.

^123:3 I. Book of Jao., cap. 12; in Schmidt's German translation, p. 269.

^123:4 Heian was the old name of Kyoto; it means "the city of peace," the haven of refuge to which Kwammu fled from the turbulence and intrigues of the Nara monks.

^124:1 Nanjo, "Cat. Trip," No. 289.