Who’s the “Laughing Buddha”? A scholar of East Asian Buddhism explains

With his delighted expression, round belly, bald head and monk's robes, the “Laughing Buddha” is immediately recognizable. Attentive observers, nevertheless, might wonder why this Buddha doesn’t seem like the historical Buddhawho lived in India about 2,500 years ago.

Images of the historical Buddhaoften called Siddhartha Gautama or Shakyamuni, depict him with a neutral facial features, slender stature, tightly curled hair, and monk's robes. If the Laughing Buddha will not be the historical Buddha, then who’s he and the way did he turn out to be so popular?

As Scholar of East Asian Buddhism who studies how and why Transforming deities Over time, I got here to view the Laughing Buddha as a key figure showing how people have adapted Buddhism to different cultural and historical contexts.

The Zen monk who became the Laughing Buddha

One of the names for the Laughing Buddha is “Cloth Bag”, which is pronounced “Budai” in Chinese and “Hotei” in Japanese. Cloth Bag was the nickname of a Chinese Buddhist monk who lived within the tenth century. He belonged to the Zen school of Buddhism, which is thought for its stories about monks who reject conventional pursuits resembling wealth and fame.

Cloth Bag got his nickname because he wandered from town to town carrying a cloth bag stuffed with treasures that he freely shared with children.

Chinese Buddhists, seeing Cloth Bag's legendary generosity, compassion and joy, concluded that he couldn’t be an unusual monk, but a human incarnation of the long run Buddha, whose name was Maitreya. Artists in China depicted Cloth Bag as fat, laughing monk often surrounded by children or animals. In the standard East Asian context, his round belly represents his generosity and abundance and in addition symbolizes the positive qualities of wealth and fertility.

From China, images of the fabric bag as a laughing Buddha spread in two directions. They first spread in East Asia to countries resembling Vietnam, Korea and Japan. Zen is a well-liked type of Buddhism in all of those countries, nevertheless it was Japanese Zen Buddhism that gained worldwide popularity within the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This implies that many images of the Laughing Buddha within the West are based on Japanese models.

Exhibition of Chinese porcelain

Images of the Laughing Buddha also spread from China to Europe, where the 18th century elites showed their aesthetic sophistication by Exhibition of Chinese style porcelainincluding statues of the Laughing Buddha.

The development of the Laughing Buddha right into a worldwide icon is due each to the fascination with Chinese porcelain in 18th century Europe and to the spread of Japanese Zen Buddhism within the twentieth century.

Today we see the Laughing Buddha in shops, homes and whilst brand nameMany people may know what the Laughing Buddha looks like, but few know who he’s or how he became so popular.