Xia Jing Shan specialized in Buddhism and painting, and his prolific portraits of Buddha, bodhisattvas, and arhats are especially recognized. Arthats portraits alone take up a considerable amount of in his oeuvre, and because Xia was a man of broad experiences and was extensively learned, his arhats paintings are, therefore, quite diverse and worthy to be studied through both macro and micro perspectives. Bearing this in mind, this paper intends to begin with a collection of arhat paintings by Qing dynasty artist Yao Wen-Han to examine possible enhancements and alterations made to the images to highlight the notable features of Tibetan-style arhats, with particular attention placed on the specifications of the Dharma instruments and mudras. Based on a macro perspective, it is observed that although Xia was a man of broad experiences, his arhat paintings, nevertheless, adhered to the traditions of Han Chinese Buddhism and also project rich literati sentiments. On the other hand, based on a micro perspective, the specifications followed by Xia on his arhat paintings shared similarities with the arhats painted by Xu Yang, who was a court painter in the Qing dynasty, with associations also observed with arthat paintings by Zhuang Yu-De, another Qing court painter. The three of them also inherited the compositional details on arthat paintings by Buddhist monk and painter, Guanxiu. Preliminary analyses on the arhat paintings by the three artists are executed through research, which gives us concrete insights on the artworks. With further comparisons done on the arhat paintings by the three masters, differences between their artworks of the same subjects are pointed out. The differences were partly the results of their respective zeitgeists, with each artist’s specific pursuit driven by the particular spatial and temporal setting he was in. However, it is also observed that they shared a similar religious pursuit, demonstrating different pratyaya (conviction, reliance) with shared dharma (doctrine, universal truth).
