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zuliko-forever — Buddha
Published: 2010-12-23 06:55:04 +0000 UTC; Views: 5381; Favourites: 70; Downloads: 143
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I took this photo,only for this purpose.It's nothing too great,I know,but I hope you like it anyway.
Oh,and please,enlighten me on this if you can:Why do we portray Buddha as fat when (from what I've seen of him in history books and all) he appeared to be a thin man? :/
(c)~zuliko-forever 2010
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Comments: 6
hello! you ask why Buddha is portrayed fat.
The thing is, the fat Buddha (like the one in your picture), is actually not the historical Buddha (Siddharta Gautama). The fat Buddha is used to depict Maitreya. He is the "future Buddha", who will come when the teachings of Siddharta Gautama have been forgotten. Usually Chinese people use this depiction. Also, as ryogto has said, the fat Buddha depiction is based on a monk named Budai. I don't know why Budai is confused for Maitreya, or when did this confusion start, but anyway that is the story.
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You ask why we portray Buddha as fat. The truth is Buddha is not portrayed as fat and he never was recorded to have been overweight. The overweight figure that people in the west call "Laughing Buddha" is actually not Buddha at all, but is in reality a monk named Budai that was around about 1500 years after Gautama Buddha. Search Budai in wikipedia.
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This is great, by the way! I love the quote, and of course it's so true!
Have you seen the Buddhist group! You don't have to be Buddhist to belong, but to be of a compassionate person, although most of their images DO happen to be of buddha or buddhist oriented, even though they say they don't have to be. My point is THIS would be perfect there.
And to answer your question, there are different aspects of Buddha from his life. Buddha when he is fat, is just ONE aspect of Buddha, but I don't know why it's most popular to portray him in this way, expect I think it's the "Happy Buddha" and it's likely most popular to show him in his happiest stage.
But I don't know.
I like what I've learned from his other aspects or stages of life, and there are those statues, too, but not as many are made I guess.
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