Maitreya

“He will sit beneath the Naga-tree of awakening and turn the wheel of dharma anew.”

Maitreya (Pali: Metteyya) is the only future Buddha universally accepted by every major Buddhist tradition — Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Shakyamuni Buddha himself prophesied Maitreya’s coming in the Anagatavamsa and other texts: when the dharma has been completely forgotten, Maitreya will descend from the Tushita Heaven, attain enlightenment beneath the Naga-pushpa (dragon-flower) tree, and re-establish the Buddhist teaching for an age. His name comes from maitri — loving-kindness. In East Asia, his iconography fused with the medieval Chinese monk Budai (the “Laughing Buddha”), producing the round, smiling, fat figure that Westerners often misidentify as “the Buddha.” Throughout Buddhist history, false Maitreyas have triggered messianic uprisings — the White Lotus Society in China, the Maitreya rebellions of the Sui and Yuan dynasties.

Cross-tradition parallels: Christ’s Second Coming (the structural parallel of an awaited messianic figure who will return when the world reaches its lowest point); the Mahdi in Islam; the Kalki Avatar (10th and final avatar of Vishnu, also future-tense); the Saoshyant of Zoroastrianism. The Buddhist-Christian parallel was noted as early as the 7th century by Nestorian missionaries to China.