Originally published in 1988, this book is a multidisciplinary and cross-cultural study of the legend that has evolved around the figure of Maitreya, which followers of the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama had agreed would be the future Buddha, and the substantial influence of this legend on Buddhist culture. Arising out of an international conference held at Princeton University, this collection of twelve essays by specialists in textual studies, art history and cultural anthropology examines the origins of the Maitreya tradition in South Asia as well as a variety of culturally specific expressions of the tradition as it developed in China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan. The essays explore the various expectations Buddhist practitioners have had of Maitreya and examine the iconographic and ritualistic symbols associated with this messianic and millenarian figure. Several essays also examine the controversy regarding circumstances under which the figure has sometimes taken on apocalyptic and eschatological characteristics.

Alan Sponberg teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. He has published on Buddhism in South Asia and East Asia, with special interest in the early transmission of Buddhism into China. He is currently completing a two-volume study of Yogacara Buddhism in India and China.

Helen Hardacre is a member of the Department of Religion at Princeton University and the author of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary Japan: Reiyukai Kyodan, Kurozumikyo and the New Religions of Japan and The Religion of Japan's Korean Minority.

	Contents: Maitreya, the Future Buddha
	List of Contributors	vii
	Preface	xi
	Abbreviations	xv
	Introduction - Alan Sponberg	1
	I. Maitreya and the History of Religions
1	The Many Faces of Maitreya: A Historian of Religions' Reflections - Joseph M. Kitagawa	7
2	The Meanings of the Maitreya Myth: A Typological Analysis - Jan Nattier	23
	II The Core Tradition and Its Subsequent Variation
	Maitreya in South Asia: Introduction - Alan Sponberg	51
3	Stages in the Bodhisattva Career of the Tathagata Maitreya - Padmanabh S. Jaini	54
	Maitreyya in China, Korea, and Vietnam: Introduction - Alan Sponberg	91
4	Wonhyo on Maitreya Visualization - Alan Sponberg	94
5	Messenger, Savior, and Revolutionary: Maitreya in Chinese Popular Religious Literature of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries - Daniel L. Overmyer	110
6	Maitreya in Korea - Lewis Lancaster	135
7	Perfect World and Perfect Time: Maitreya in Vietnam - Hue-Tam Ho Tai	154
	Maitreya in Japan: Introduction - Helen Hardacre	171
8	Types of Maitreya Belief in Japan - Miyata Noboru	175
9	The Pensive Prince of Chuguji: Maitreya Cult and Image in Seventh-Century Japan - Christine M. E. Guth	191
10	Awaiting Maitreya at Kasagi - Karen L. Brock	214
11	Mr. Fuji as the Realm of Miroku: The Transformation of Maitreya in the Cult of Mt. Fuji in Early Modern Japan - Martin Collcutt	248
12	Maitreya in Modern Japan - Helen Hardacre	270
	Epilogue: A Prospectus for the Study of Maitreya - Alan Sponberg	285
	Index	298