I’m often amused when people ask me why the Buddha statues I have (or the pictures I’ve taken of them) aren’t fat.
Generally speaking, there are two types of Buddha statues, representing two completely different people. In the Western world, they are often confused, probably because the term “Buddha” can be used to refer to either of them. The difference, though, is that one of them is the Buddha, and the other is a Buddha.
Hopefully the pictures and descriptions below will help clear up any confusion.
The Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama)
This is a statue of Siddhartha Gautama, known as The Buddha, a spiritual teacher in the northern region of India. He lived 2600 years ago, and his collective teachings became the foundation of Buddhism.
When Buddhists refer to the Buddha, this is who they are talking about. Gautama Buddha is often depicted in several different poses, including seated in meditation (with various hand positions or mudras), standing or walking, and lying down on his side, representing the different stages of his life and teachings.
Trivia: The Buddha called the religion he founded Dhamma-vinaya, meaning “the doctrine and discipline.”
Hotei, The Laughing Buddha (a.k.a. Budai, Angida, Qieci, etc.)
This is a statue of Hotei, the Laughing Buddha. Hotei is a character based on an eccentric monk who lived in the time of the Liang Dynasty, and who has become associate with luck and good fortune in many Asian cultures. In Buddhism, the term Buddha is sometimes used to refer to a person who has attained enlightenment through practice (Theravada Buddhists would refer to him as an Arhat rather than a Buddha). He is usually depicted as smiling or laughing, earning him the name “the Laughing Buddha.”
Now you know the difference.
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Michael Lee
25 July 2009 at 2:34 pm
One of the more common names for the Laughing Buddha that you omit is his Chinese one: “Mi Le Fuo” (pronounced Mee-Luh-Fuoh). Hotei is the Japanese name for him.
Florent
25 July 2009 at 3:12 pm
A side note from
http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Iconography_of_the_Buddha#Introduction
“Buddha images are not intended to be naturalistic representations of what Gautama Buddha looked like. There are no contemporary images of him, and the oldest Buddha images date from 500 to 600 years after his lifetime.”
Khürt Williams
25 July 2009 at 8:19 pm
It’s also interesting to note that most people I meet associate The Buddha and Buddhism with China and are shocked to learn that he was actually Indian.
Mitch Malone
26 July 2009 at 10:40 pm
I think most of the Buddha statues I’ve ever seen have been quite thin, but I have also been asked this question by a family member who was interested in knowing more about Buddhism.
So I am curious to know now, does this mean you are in fact Buddhist?
Dan Benjamin
27 July 2009 at 9:31 am
@Michael - thanks for noting that!
@Mitch - I am a Buddhist in the Theravada tradition, as detailed on the about page here, http://hivelogic.com/about.
Mitch Malone
27 July 2009 at 11:33 pm
@Dan - Interesting. I’ve been practicing Vajrayana (Diamond Way) for approximately 6 months now. Always interesting to hear of other bloggers who practice.
Wm Jas
06 August 2009 at 12:38 am
I’m the guy who took that Milefo/laughing-Buddha photo. For what it’s worth, I was told by the monks that it represented Maitreya, the future Buddha, not a monk from the Liang dynasty.
Jerry Hanson
12 August 2009 at 1:59 pm
Another name I have come upon for the Laughing Buddha is “Pu Tai” who is said to be the protector of children and the bag he carries are gifts.
Cameron Roberts
11 October 2009 at 1:18 am
I am a buddhist and I too recive this question all the time the difference between siddhartha gautama and the buddhas and bodhisattvas
Christian Junkar
18 October 2009 at 6:16 pm
Kurt Williams. You are wrong. He was not Indian he was Nepalese and grew up in a town which was ruled by his father. When he was born he had marks. They meant two things. (He will be a great ruler) or (He will be a religious genius). He was a young teenager and was married and had children he left the palace and gave up his royalty and traded in his silk robes and got simple drapes as clothing. He studied many gurus. He then began meditating and fasting. He gained 5(not possitive, just what I’ve read) followers. He gave up fasting because he thought that it only distracted you and made you feel pain. His followers left him believing he was wrong to give up his fasting. He sat under-neath a tree(The Bodhi tree) and vowed to meditate until becoming enlightened. He reached enlightment after 49 days of a trance and no eating or drinking. He then went on to share his teachings.
Kristian
06 January 2010 at 1:21 am
When in college, I took a course on the history of the silk road. Generally speaking, it is basically history of east asia, which naturally included India. It turns out that along the silk road, one very popular trade was religious ideology, or rather religious ideas. While islam was being spread a bit more forcefully, buddhism was passed on and on throughout different cultures along the silk road, hence buddhism’s spread to china among other places. One marker of a religion is its art. obviously statues fall under that category. As a result, there are actually hundreds of different types of buddha figures to observe out there in ancient asia’s history, and, on a sidenote, many of those relics were stolen by british colonials.
But back to the statues question:
The two buddhas, fat and thin versions, are actually just the tip of the iceberg. I’ll give an example: there are buddhas out there that appear to wear a toga, which was obviously not a chinese or indian practice. Yet monks almost dress in this way. Alternatively, I might add that there are even rules about the sales of silk in roman lawbooks, which means that undoubtedly the romans had even seen some buddhism, and have maybe fashioned their own vision of the buddha as well.
I guess my point is that i think one would be more like to find two dissimilar buddhas than two similar ones, unless you’re in america, and much of our little purchase-ables are produced in china, so i’d guess that you’d see the chinese’s take on buddha… or not. Who knows. :)
Isn’t that cool??