the Mahayanist scriptures Buddhas are radiant and light-giving
beings, surrounded by halos of prodigious extent and emitting flashes
which illuminate the depths of space. The visions of innumerable
paradises in all quarters containing jewelled stupas and lighted by
refulgent Buddhas which are frequent in these works seem founded on
astronomy vaporized under the influence of the idea that there are
millions of universes all equally transitory and unsubstantial. There
is no reason, so far as I see, to regard Gotama as a mythical solar
hero, but the celestial Buddhas[78] clearly have many solar
attributes. This is natural. Solar deities are so abundant in Vedic
mythology that it is hardly possible to be a benevolent god without
having something of the character of the sun. The stream of foreign
religions which flowed into India from Bactria and Persia about the
time of the Christian era brought new aspects of sun worship such as
Mithra, Helios and Apollo and strengthened the tendency to connect
divinity and light. And this connection was peculiarly appropriate and
obvious in the case of a Buddha, for Buddhas are clearly revealers and
light-givers, conquerors of darkness and dispellers of ignorance.

Amitabha (or the Buddha of measureless light), rising suddenly from an
obscure origin, has like Avalokita and Vishnu become one of the great
gods of Asia. He is also known as Amitayus or measureless life, and is
therefore a god of light and immortality. According to both the Lotus
and the Smaller Sukhavati-vyuha he is the lord of the western quarter
but he is unknown to the Lalita-vistara. It gives the ruler of the
west a lengthy title,[79] which suggests a land of gardens. Now
Paradise, which has biblical authority as a name for the place of
departed spirits, appears to mean in Persian a park or enclosed garden
and the Avesta speaks of four heavens, the good thought Paradise, the
good word Paradise, the good deed Paradise and the Endless Lights.[80]
This last expression bears a remarkable resemblance to the name of
Amitabha and we can understand that he should rule the west, because
it is the home to which the sun and departed spirits go. Amitabha's
Paradise is called Sukhavati or Happy Land. In the Puranas the city of
Varuna (who is suspected of having a non-Indian origin) is said to be
situated in the west and is called Sukha (Linga P. and Vayu P.) or
Mukhya (so Vishnu P. and others). The name Amitabha also occurs in the
Vi