Maitreya Buddha

Maitreya, meaning ‘The Compassionate One’ in translation, is destined to succeed Śākyamuni Buddha as the next Buddha. He presently resides in the Inner Court of Tuṣita Heaven, where he teaches the Dharma; fifty-six hundred million and seven hundred thousand years from now, he will descend to the human realm, attain enlightenment beneath the Dragon-Flower Tree, and hold the Three Assemblies to liberate sentient beings—hence his title, ‘The Honoured Maitreya Buddha, the Future Buddha Who Will Descend to Earth’. In Chinese history, devotion to Maitreya flourished greatly: during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Pure Land of Maitreya coexisted and thrived alongside the Pure Land of Amitābha Buddha. In the Five Dynasties period, the itinerant monk Budai—the ‘Cloth-Sack Monk’—was recognised as an incarnation of Maitreya, and his rotund, smiling image gradually supplanted the solemn Crown-Wearing Maitreya as the standard representation enshrined in the Hall of the Heavenly Kings. Mount Xuedou in Fenghua, Zhejiang Province, has been designated the principal sacred site of Maitreya, and in 2008, a fifty-six-metre-tall bronze statue of Maitreya Buddha was completed there.