The most important of them is Amitâbha. He is strangely obscure in the earlier art and literature of Indian Buddhism. Some of the nameless Buddha figures in the Gandharan sculptures may represent him, but this is not proved and the works of Grünwedel and Foucher suggest that compared with Avalokita and Târâ his images are late and not numerous. In the earlier part of the Lotus[542] he is only just mentioned as if he were of no special importance. He is also mentioned towards the end of the Awakening of Faith ascribed to Aśvaghosha, but the authorship of the work cannot be regarded as certain and, if it were, the passage stands apart from the main argument and might well be an addition. Again in the Mahâyâna-sûtrâlaṇkâra[543] of Asanga, his paradise is just mentioned. Against these meagre and cursory notices in Indian literature may be set the fact that two translations of the principal Amidist scripture into Chinese were made in the second century A.D. and four in the third, all by natives of Central Asia. The inference that the worship of Amitâbha flourished in Central Asia some time before the earliest of these translations is irresistible. According to Târanâtha, the Tibetan historian of Buddhism[544], this worship goes back to Saraha or Rahulabhadra. He was reputed to have been the teacher of Nâgârjuna and a great magician. He saw Amitâbha in the land of Dhingkoṭa and died with his face turned towards Sukhâvatî. I have found no explanation of the name Dhingkoṭa but the name Saraha does not sound Indian. He is said to have been a sudra and he is represented in Tibetan pictures with a beard and topknot and holding an arrow[545] in his hand. In all this there is little that can be called history, but still it appears that the first person whom tradition connects with the worship of Amitâbha was of low caste, bore a foreign name, saw the deity in an unknown country, and like many tantric teachers was represented as totally unlike a Buddhist monk. It cannot be proved that he came from the lands of the Oxus or Turkestan, but such an origin would explain much in the tradition. On the other hand, there would be no difficulty in accounting for Zoroastrian influence at Peshawar or Takkasila within the frontiers of India. Somewhat later Vasubandhu is stated to have preached faith in Amitâbha but it does not appear that this doctrine ever had in India a tithe of the importance which it obtained in the Far East.