BrainStuff Classics: Who Is The Laughing Buddha?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren Bogebaum here with another classic episode for you.
In this one, we're talking about the deities sometimes depicted
next to cash registers in Chinese American restaurants, The Laughing Buddha.
Hey brain Stuff, Lauren bogle Bam Here. You've probably seen

(00:24):
him seated next to the cash register at your local
Chinese American restaurant, A shiny bronze statue of a bald,
p bellied man with a laughing grin on his face.
The same jolly fella immortalized in key chains and other
trinkets sold in Chinatown tourist shops all across the US.
That's not the Buddha, but it's in the right religious ballpark.
He's called the Laughing Buddha, and the story behind him

(00:46):
is complicated. We spoke with Denise Lady, currently the Curator
of Asian Art at the Yale University Art Gallery. She
held the same position at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
for twenty two years and is no stranger to Westerners
can fusion over the Laughing Buddha statue. She said, in Christianity,
there's this one guy. So when people see this fun guy,

(01:07):
they think that's the Buddha. But it's not. The Buddha
in the singular is Saddarka Gultma. But the Buddhist religion
over time has added multiple layers of deities, many of
whom have multiple avatars, and so it's gotten mind bogglingly complicated. Buddha,
the story goes, was a man named Saddarka Gultma who
lived around the sixth century b c. In India. Born

(01:29):
a wealthy prince, he chose to live an ascetic lifestyle
in search of the meaning of existence, which he found
while meditating for forty days under a fig tree. After
achieving nirvana, which is the escape from the endless cycle
of suffering, death and rebirth, he became the Buddha, or
the awakened One. Over the centuries, his teachings spread throughout India,
into China, across Asia, and eventually around the world. Today

(01:51):
there aren't estimated three hundred and seventy six million followers
of Buddhism worldwide, But so who is the laughing Buddha.
Buddhism has expanded over the millennia to include a pantheon
of deities. In addition, to Gotma Buddha. Those include numerous bodhisatva,
the term for sage like individuals who work for the
enlightenment of all sentient beings. In Thetavad Buddhism, practiced mainly

(02:15):
in Southeast Asia. Guttma Buddha is only the most recent
of twenty eight Buddhas described in holy texts. And then
there are avatars, humans believed to be incarnations of deities.
The Laughing Buddha was one such avatar, a tenth century
Chinese monk named Buddai. According to accounts written centuries later,
but I was a gregarious, pot bellied monk who wandered
from village to village carrying a large sack over his

(02:37):
shoulder Buddhai meaning cloth sack. He was beloved by children
and the poor, to whom he would give rice and
sweets from his sack. On his deathbed, bud I penned
a poem in which he revealed himself as the avatar
of Maitrea, a deity also known as the future Buddha.
Lightie explains, in our lifetime, this great cosmic era you
and I are sharing, there's a teaching Buddha named Suddarta Gotma.

(03:00):
The world will ultimately destroy itself. I don't know when,
but when the world is reborn, Matreo will come back
as the teaching Buddha of that era. Over time, Buddhai
became the subject of popular devotion in Zen Buddhism, both
in China and Japan. His large belly and sack are
believed to represent abundance, and he's included among these seven
Lucky Gods of Japan as a harbinger of abundance and

(03:22):
good health. At some point, he also became the patron
deity of restaurants and bartenders, hence his prized location next
to the cash register. Lightie isn't sure of the exact
historical providence of today's laughing Buddha statues, but she believes
the Boddhai imagery in Chinese art and sculpture started popping
up in the fifteenth century. She said. As global trade

(03:42):
begins to expand in the late sixteenth and seventeenth century
and porcelain is totally transforming global ceramics, there's probably some
imagery of this guy that snuck in it got picked
up in the West, turned into the laughing Buddha and
made into this kitchy thing that you can buy anywhere.
Although rubbing Buddhai's belly for good luck is not Buddhist
teaching and generally considered impolite, devotees of Buddhism don't seem

(04:05):
to have a problem with the spread of the icon.
Barbara O'Brien, a journalist and zen Buddhism student, wrote, it
is indicative of Buddhism's broad tolerance of diversity that this
laughing Buddha of folklore is accepted into the official practice
for Buddhists. In equality that represents Buddha nature is to
be encouraged, and the folklore of the kind laughing Buddha
is not regarded as any kind of sacrilege, even though

(04:27):
people may unwittingly confuse him with gultma Buddha. Today's episode
is based on the article that fat Jolly Fella Isn't
Buddha on house Stuffworks dot com, written by Dave Bruce.
Brain stuff In's production of by Heart Radio in partnership
with house stuff works dot Com, and it's produced by
Tyler Klang. For more podcasts from My heart Radio, visit

(04:48):
the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows,