Mesarthim Q. P.: What's funny is that Vajrapani - who eventually led to those big thundery guys with clubs you see at the entrance to Buddhist temples in Japan - was based on Hercules, pretty much 1:1. I like to think Herc converted and found peace.

Did you ever hear of the Manichean Painting of the Buddha Jesus? I thought not. It’s not a story the Vatican would tell you. It’s a Chinese legend.

One of the greatest lost opportunities of globalization is that we’ll never get to see what wild and wonky syncretic versions of Christianity might have emerged from isolated Christian sects in Korea/Philippines/China etc

And by a Chinese legend I mean its an icon of Jesus painted by a Manichean sect in southern China, that was then brought to Japan and used as a Christian icon by Arima Harunobu, and now it’s in a Buddhist temple and venerated as an image of Ākāśagarbha

What's funny is that Vajrapani - who eventually led to those big thundery guys with clubs you see at the entrance to Buddhist temples in Japan - was based on Hercules, pretty much 1:1. I like to think Herc converted and found peace.

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