Maitreya - Maitreya Claimants

Maitreya Claimants

Since his death, the Chinese monk Budai (Hotei) has been popularly regarded as an incarnation of the bodhisattva Maitreya. His depiction as the Laughing Buddha continues to be very popular in East Asian culture.

While a number of persons have proclaimed themselves to be Maitreya over the years following the Buddha’s parinirvana, none have been officially recognized by the sangha and Buddhists. A particular difficulty faced by any would-be claimant to Maitreya's title is the fact that the Buddha is considered to have made a number of fairly specific predictions regarding the circumstances that would occur prior to Maitreya's coming; such as that the teachings of the Buddha would be completely forgotten, and all of the remaining relics of Sakyamuni Buddha would be gathered in Bodh Gaya and cremated.

The following list is just a small selection of those people who claimed or claim to be the incarnation of Maitreya. Many have either used the Maitreya incarnation claim to form a new Buddhist sect or have used the name of Maitreya to form a new religious movement or cult.

• Gung Ye, a Korean warlord and king of short-lived state of Taebong during the 10th century, claimed himself as living incarnation of Maitreya and ordered his subjects to worship him. His claim was widely rejected by most Buddhist monks and later he was dethroned and killed by his own servants.
• In 613 the monk Xiang Haiming claimed himself Maitreya and adopted imperial title.
• In 690 Empress Wu inaugurated the Second Zhou dynasty, proclaimed herself an incarnation of the future Buddha Maitreya, and made Luoyang the "holy capital." In 693 she replaced the compulsory Dao De Jing in the curriculum temporarily with her own Rules for Officials.
• Lu Zhong Yi, the 17th patriarch of I-Kuan Tao, claimed to be an incarnation of Maitreya.
• L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the belief systems Dianetics and Scientology, suggested he was "Metteya" (Maitreya) in the 1955 poem Hymn of Asia. Numerous editors and followers of Hubbard claim that in the book's preface, specific physical characteristics said to be outlined—in unnamed Sanskrit sources—as properties of the coming Maitreya; properties which Hubbard's appearance supposedly aligned with.
• Adi Da was suggested by his devotees to be Maitreya: "an All-Surpassing God-Man yet to come -- a final Avatar, the ultimate Messiah, a consumate Prophet or Enlightened Sage, a Spiritual Deliverer who will appear in the 'late-time', the 'dark' epoch when humanity is lost, apparently cut off from Wisdom, Truth and God. Buddhists call that Expected One 'Maitreya'."
• Raël's Maitreya claims center on the content of the Agama Sutra (Japanese: Agon Sutra), supposedly a very ancient text written by Buddha himself, but which has been deemphasized or forgotten by the majority of Buddhist cultures. Raël has claimed directly to people attending Asia Raëlian Church seminars, that someone born in France, a country which is often symbolized by the cock (or rooster), west of the Orient, meets the criteria of the Maitreya. Rael himself claims to be this individual.
• Joseph Emmanuel of the Mission of Maitreya claims to be the Maitreya Buddha, as well as a major prophet of God who purportedly fulfills prophecies from the Old Testament, New Testament, Qur'an, Baha'i scriptures and eastern scriptures. Perhaps the most prominent example of Emmanuel's claims to being the Maitreya is the fact that his main teaching seeks to unify the world's religions by means of showing how each religion corresponds to one of seven "seals". His use of the term "seal" is a reference to a central tenet of Christian eschatological belief described in the Bible, in which it is predicted that Christ would return and open a book sealed with "seven seals" (Rev 5:5). The Mission of Maitreya also makes claims that link Emmanuel's teaching of seven seals to Buddhist tradition. According to Buddhist Scriptures, the Maitreya Buddha will "take seven steps forward, and where he puts down his feet a jewel or lotus will spring up." Emmanuel was originally a student of the yoga teacher P.R. Sarkar in India, who founded Ananda Marga, and while in this organization, Emmanuel was given the spiritual name "Maitreya." This has been cited as further evidence by the Mission of Maitreya that Joseph Emmanuel is the true Maitreya.