This painting belonged to a series of which the central element depicted the historical Buddha Sakyamuni, and the others, systematically arranged on the sides, a complete series of sixteen arhats. The Sanskrit term arhat (“worthy, noble”) broadly indicates the faithful who, having duly followed the teachings of the Buddhist doctrine, are going to reach nirvana, that is total extinction at the moment of death and therefore a final stop to their cycle of rebirths. According to a Buddhist tradition, a special group of sixteen elder arhats, indicated in Sanskrit with the title “sthavira” (cf. Latin stans vir), was tasked with staying in the world in order to keep watch over Sakyamuni’s doctrine after his death, waiting for the bodhisattva Maitreya—the future Buddha—to descend from his paradise. Two attendants were later added to this series, thus reaching a total of eighteen masters, usually identifiable on the basis of their attributes and postures.
Tibetan artists derived the iconography of this cycle not from India, where it originated, but from China, where the cult of the arhats was extremely popular. In the second half of the 10th century a Tibetan clergyman, Lumay, had the eighteen portraits of the arhats painted on canvas, taken from strongly characterised Chinese models, and he took them to Tibet, where that series became the standard reference for all later depictions. In the Land of Snows the “sthaviras” are traditionally represented in the Chinese manner, irrespective of how close to the eastern borders of the Tibetan world the artists and their schools are located. This painting portrays the second “sthavira”, Ajita, together with an assistant. Immersed in deep meditation, this arhat sits on a crag at the foot of a twisted tree, in a mountain landscape populated with birds, vegetal elements and rocks stylised in the Chinese fashion.