The arhat statues in Yanxia Cave, Hangzhou are typical of the Buddhist statuary of the Wuyue Kingdom during the Five Dynasties. While conducting a joint investigation of the cave temples in Zhejiang Province in 2021, the Cultural Heritage Division of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum and the Qianjiang Administrative Office for West Lake Scenery in Hangzhou discovered nine inscriptions related to statues of arhats dating to the Wuyue Kingdom period of the Five Dynasties. These inscriptions indicate that the statues were created in about the third year of the Guangshun era （953） during the rule of the Wuyue Kingdom as a depiction of the Eighteen Arhats. This discovery marks the earliest physical example of statues expressing the theme of the Eighteen Arhatsin China. Together with other engravings from the same period, these inscriptions suggest that the arhat statues were closely associated with the Nandimitra Vadana translated by Xuan Zang.
