The story of the five hundred arhats has been long handed down together with the Buddhist scriptures, but its influence with Chinese art came rather late. Some images of the major disciples or the sixty arhats were discovered in stone caves and temple walls in the early and mid-T'ang Dynasty. That triggered the artistic creation depicting the five hundred arhats. Only after the Five Dynasties did works of this kind formally appear on the stage of Chinese art. The earliest works now existent are stone cave images made in that period.
During the Sung Dynasty，artistic creation depicting the arhats reached its peak of glory. All the works done in that period，including paintings and sculptures, were capable of capturing the inner feelings and charm of the arhats, and showing an integration of the spirit of a Ch'an master and the quality of a poet. In the Ming and the Ch'ing Dynasties. the making of arhat images degenerated into mere imitation of the earlier works, but it still played an important role in the artistic world.
This paper is a sequel to "A Study of Arhat Images" published in No.4 issue of this journal. It concerns the origin and implication of the story of the five hundred arhats, the historic records of the artistic creation of the arhats, and the special style of the extant works on this subject.
