Framed tangka of Three Arhats and two directional guardians below the Arhats. Kham School. Cloth border. The Arhats are Buddhist saints, fully enlightened about the nature of reality, yet they are inferior to a Buddha in development of compassion, hence less capable of helping others. They are often portrayed as a group of sixteen who never die and live as hermits in contemplation, praying to preserve the Buddhist teaching as long as possible. The Arhats were particularly popular in China from the 10th century, and it is from that source that the representation of Arhats became popular in Tibet, rather than from India where they are unknown in any surviving images.
