On the other hand the Chinese Tripiṭaka contains many translations which bear an earlier date than this and are ascribed to translators connected with the Yüeh-chih. I see no reason to doubt the statements that the Happy Land sutra and Prajñâ-pâramitâ (Nanjio, 25, 5) were translated before 200 A.D. and portions of the Avataṃsaka and Lotus (Nanjio, 100, 103, 138) before 300 A.D. But if so, the principal doctrines of Mahayanist Buddhism must have been known in Khotan[539] and the lands of Oxus before we have definite evidence for the presence of Christianity there.
Zoroastrianism may however have contributed to the development and transformation of Buddhism for the two were certainly in contact. Thus the coins of Kanishka bear figures of Persian deities[540] more frequently than images of the Buddha: we know from Chinese sources that the two religions co-existed at Khotan and Kashgar and possibly there are hostile references to Buddhism (Buiti and Gaotema the heretic) in the Persian scriptures[541].
It is true that we should be cautious in fancying that we detect a foreign origin for the Mahâyâna. Different as it may be from the Buddhism of the Pali Canon, it is an Indian not an exotic growth. Deification, pantheism, the creation of radiant or terrible deities, extreme forms of idealism or nihilism in metaphysics are tendencies manifested in Hinduism as clearly as in Buddhism. Even the doctrine of the Buddha's three bodies, which sounds like an imitation of the Christian Trinity, has roots in the centuries before the Christian era. But late Buddhism indubitably borrowed many personages from the Hindu pantheon, and when we find Buddhas and Bodhisattvas such as Amitâbha, Avalokita, Manjuśrî and Kshitigarbha without clear antecedents in India we may suspect that they are borrowed from some other mythology, and if similar figures were known to Zoroastrianism, that may be their source.
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.