It seems like most images and statues and paintings that I have ever seen of the Buddha show him as a fat man. In some of these statues it looks like he weighs 300+ pounds. Now, he came from a royal family 2500 years ago, he fasted and walked lots of miles on the road to enlightenment…do you think he really would have been that fat?
I like to think of the Buddha as a happy, jolly fat man, not unlike Santa Claus…I just dont think it is very feasible.
peace,
JB
Just a WAG, but probably because the masses of buddhists in China, Japan, etc historically were always on the edge of starvation.
If you look at the Buddha representation in SE Asia, for example Thailand, it is always a skinny guy.
This may also be the representation of the “Greater Vehicle” buddha in North Asia versus the “Lesser Vehicle” buddha is SE Asia. For what it’s worth, monks and nuns in China today are usually asthetically thin.
That makes sense. From my limited knowledge of Buddhism, isn’t not over indulging on food and drink one of the Buddha’s teaching? Wouldn’t depicting him as a fat man also depict him as a hypocrit? I am not trying to offend, but to gain knowledge. Actually I have been studying Buddhism pretty seriously the last couple of months and would be very glad if any Doper Buddhist had any recomended readings or other goodies for me. Thanks
JB
Those Buddhas are not Siddhartha Gautama, but a Japanese Buddha. Siddhartha was Indian, and the vast majority of statues reflects that–He is skinny, with the elongated earlobes you see in so much traditional Indian art.
A Buddhist woman I once dated told me the story of the Fat Buddha. It seems (according to her) that there was once a young monk who was so beautiful that he was distracting both to others, and to himself (think Narcissus). He meditated for IIRC 3 weeks, without once coming out of his trance, He attained Nirvana, and in that state, willed himself less desirable. When he came out of the trance, he was in the state we often see and rub the belly of.
I am not sure how much truth there is in that story, but it is the one that I heard. I plan on visitung some Buddhist temples today and over the next week or so, and I will keep you updatded with every story I hear (Japanese traditions only, as that is where I am at the moment)
Well, while he did fast as a young man, he came to reject fasting because he saw it as unneccesary, extreme, and self denying. The Buddha is portrayed as fat in some depictions because fatness has been symbolic of prosperity, wisdom and happiness.
Well, that poses another question, blessedwolf…I always figured that the statues were of Siddartha Buddha, not just random Buddhas. How mant Buddhas are/were there? Surely there must be quite a number of people who have found enlightenment over the last 2500 years.
JB
IIRC there have been seventeen who have achieved “Buddha” status. Though I may be pulling that number outta my ass. I’ll find out for you though. I’m in Japan until Oct. 30, and plan on seeing a lot of temples and getting as much info as I can. It may be a few days, perhaps a week or so, but I will get back to you.
Thank you, blessedwolf 
I think there might also be some confusion between the Buddha and another traditional Chinese figure, a fat man usually depicted with an almost mutantly large forehead. Anyone?
The “Fat” Buddha always confused me – he didn’t seem to agree with the traditionasl Indian image of the Buddha. In fact, there is a long tradition of statues of a “starving” Buddha, so thin that his ribs show through. This agrees with stories told about Gautama Siddhartha. See the book The Gods of Northern Buddhism for pictures and discussion of this image, and in fact for information on most of the Buddhist images. Buddhist figures are even more regular than Christian saints, and like them, can be identified by their attributes. BTGoNB is a great “Field Guide to the Buddhas”, but there isn’t much in it on the Fat Buddha that seems so common in the West.
As I understand it, the Fat Buddha is actually a combination of Maitraeya Buddha with a Chinese god of Wealth, Mi-Lo-Fo. The Maitreaya Buddha is not identified with Gautama Siddhartha, the “historical” Buddha, but is the “Buddha yet to come”. How these twwo figures were conflated I do not know, but it’s the only xplanation I’ve come across that makes sense.
The thin long-bearded figure with the bulging foreead isn’t Buddhist. He’s one of the Eight Taoist Immortals, associated with Taoism. Taoism is another of those esoteric religions of the East that seems all ethereal philosophy at first, but you find on closer examination that it has a lot of odd folk belief mixed into it. See John Blofeld’s books on Taoism for an explanation o the Immortals.
Check out Jack Kornfield.
According to The Book of Buddhas by Eva Rudy Jansen(1990 Binkey Kok), “‘The Laughing Buddha’ is another name for the Chinese master of Zen, Poe-Tai Hoshang who lived between the 6th and 10th century…”
Looking for confirmation, I found Buddhist images, which says,
“The Laughing Buddha - Pu-tai in Chinese or Hotei in Japanese. Based on a Chinese wandering monk of the 10th Century CE, thought to be an incarnation of Maitreya (Mi-lo-fu in Chinese) the next Buddha to appear on earth.”
And then I found the Buddhist Cosmology site, which says “Maitreya is the future Buddha, who will be born 30,000 years from now. The Chinese monk called Pu-tai (Ho-tei in Japanese) – “the laughing buddha” – is considered a pre-incarnation of Maitreya.”
That site also has a kind of Buddha census. It shows five transcendental and five earthly buddhas, and also five Bodhisattvas.
Tibetan buddhists would tell you there are a lot. The reincarnate Rinpoche’s, of which there are over a thousand current recognized incarnations including the Dalai Lama, would depending on your definition of enlightenment, would qualify. Or strictly speaking, in their previous incarnation they reached a state of enlightenment, and then choose to return to a human incarnation to lead others down the road to enlightenment.
Tibetan buddhas are portrayed as skinny.
Chinese buddhism, which strongly influenced Japanese buddhism, started out with 19 Luohan.
An excerpt from Southwest China Off The Beaten Track:
"Luohan is the Chinese rendering of the Sanskrit word arhat, a name that describes a person within the Buddhist faith who has overcome worldly desires and extinguished within himself the threee poisons of greed, hate and delusion.
In short, before the concept of the Bodhisattva appeared around the time of hrist, arhats embodied the highest ideal of sainthood and were considered personal disciples of the Buddha.
n china, many extravagant stories grew up around the supernatural powers of these guardians of Buddhism. early depictions presented just 18 luohans, but in time the number grew to 500 to allow for the larger family of disciples and holy men. The pictures and sculptures of luohans we see today are mianly derived from the works of Tany Dynasty Painters."
Thank you all for the informative posts. I never knew that the ‘fat’ Buddha wasn’t the same Indian prince who became enlightened all thoes years ago.
And CheapBastid, that link is very informative. Thank you.
JB
I finally had a chance to look up my books. My apologies, first, for an error – Mi-lo-fo is the Chinese name for the Maitrea Buddha, not the God of Wealth.
My source for the “Fat” Buddha familiar in the West being a conflation of Mi-lo-fo and the God of Wealth is Anthony Christie’s Chinese Mythology (Paul Hamlyn pubkl., 1968) p. 120. It is the only place in my large collection of works on Buddhism and Chinese religion where this critical point is addressed.
The book The Gods of Northern Buddhism is an essential one for understanding all those Buddhist “Gods” and “Guardians”, which seem so incongruous in a religion/philosophy that’s supposed to be so cerebral and free of superstition. It’s by Alice Getty, and was originally published in 1914. The paperback Dover copy comes from 1988. It doesn’t say anything about the Fat Buddha or its identification with either Mi-lo-fo or the God of Wealth, but its description of the GoW is interesting. He gets a chapter to himself. “Kuvera (the GoW) is always represented corpulent and covered with jewels.” He is also often positioned at the entrance to temples. Thius could explain the fat figure we usually see at the entrances to Chinese businesses, especially restaurants. He is also the only “buddha” figure to be shown sitting “Western fashiobn”, rather than lotus fashion, cross legged, “lounging”, or reclining.
I visited the Great Stupa in Colorado a few weeks ago. A Stupa is a sort of stylized Tibetan buddhist cathedral with a large statue of the Buddha inside.
The buddha statue in this case is a fairly thin man.
I would add that it stuns me that Buddhism went from the vision of Sidhartha to a religion incorporating over 700 dieties.