List of Buddha claimants
Encyclopedia
The people described below have:
Many people in recent times have also claimed to be Maitreya
, the successor of Gautama Buddha
, the historical founder of Buddhism. Many have used the Maitreya incarnation claim to form a new Buddhist sect or a new religious movement or cult.
- claimed to have attained enlightenment and become buddhasBuddhahoodIn Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...
- claimed to be manifestations of bodhisattvas
- identified themselves as Gautama BuddhaGautama BuddhaSiddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
(though most schools of Buddhism believe that the Buddha entered parinirvanaParinirvanaIn Buddhism, parinirvana is the final nirvana, which occurs upon the death of the body of someone who has attained complete awakening...
and extinguished rebirth), or - been honored as buddhas or bodhisattvas due to: being identified as the rebirth of one such (e.g., the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama); popularity; evidence in the form of auspicious signs.
Many people in recent times have also claimed to be Maitreya
Maitreya
Maitreya , Metteyya , or Jampa , is foretold as a future Buddha of this world in Buddhist eschatology. In some Buddhist literature, such as the Amitabha Sutra and the Lotus Sutra, he or she is referred to as Ajita Bodhisattva.Maitreya is a bodhisattva who in the Buddhist tradition is to appear on...
, the successor of Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
, the historical founder of Buddhism. Many have used the Maitreya incarnation claim to form a new Buddhist sect or a new religious movement or cult.
Claimants
- Guan YuGuan YuGuan Yu was a general serving under the warlord Liu Bei during the late Eastern Han Dynasty of China. He played a significant role in the civil war that led to the collapse of the Han Dynasty and the establishment of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period, of which Liu Bei was the...
- legendary warrior during the late Eastern Han DynastyHan DynastyThe Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
and Three KingdomsThree KingdomsThe Three Kingdoms period was a period in Chinese history, part of an era of disunity called the "Six Dynasties" following immediately the loss of de facto power of the Han Dynasty rulers. In a strict academic sense it refers to the period between the foundation of the state of Wei in 220 and the...
period in ancient China. Today, many people, including both police and mafia, consider him to be a divine object of reverence. In certain schools of TaoismTaoismTaoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
and Chinese Buddhism he has been deemed divine or semi-divine. Reverence for him may date back to the Sui dynastySui DynastyThe Sui Dynasty was a powerful, but short-lived Imperial Chinese dynasty. Preceded by the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it ended nearly four centuries of division between rival regimes. It was followed by the Tang Dynasty....
. Many Buddhists accept him as a bodhisattva that guards the Buddhist faith and temples. He is known as Sangharama in SanskritSanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
. - Wu ZetianWu ZetianWu Zetian , personal name Wu Zhao , often referred to as Tian Hou during the Tang Dynasty and Empress Consort Wu in later times, was the only woman in the history of China to assume the title of Empress Regnant...
- the only ruling female emperor in the history of China, and founder of her own dynasty, the Second Zhou dynasty. Ruled under the name Emperor Shengshen. Gained popular support by advocating Buddhism but ruthlessly persecuted her opponents within the royal family (by cutting off their arms and legs and inserting them in jars) and the nobility. Proclaimed herself an incarnation of Maitreya and made LuoyangLuoyangLuoyang is a prefecture-level city in western Henan province of Central China. It borders the provincial capital of Zhengzhou to the east, Pingdingshan to the southeast, Nanyang to the south, Sanmenxia to the west, Jiyuan to the north, and Jiaozuo to the northeast.Situated on the central plain of...
the "holy capital". - Gung YeGung YeGung Ye was the king of the short-lived Hugoguryeo on the Korean peninsula. Although he was a member of the Silla royal family, he became a victim of the power struggle among the royal family members during the late 9th century...
- Korean warlord and king of the short-lived state of Taebong during the 10th century. Claimed to be the living incarnation of Maitreya and ordered his subjects to worship him. His claim was rejected by most Buddhist monks and later he was dethroned and killed by his own servants. - NurhaciNurhaciNurhaci was an important Jurchen chieftain who rose to prominence in the late sixteenth century in what is today Northeastern China...
- also known as Emperor Tai Zu. Founder and leader of the Qing DynastyQing DynastyThe Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
. Believed he was a manifestation of Manjushri Bodhisattva. - Lu Zhongyi - the 17th patriarch of the I-Kuan TaoI-Kuan TaoI-Kuan Tao, also Yīguàn Dào, or usually initialized as IKT is a new religious movement that originated in twentieth-century China. It incorporates elements from Confucianism, Taoism, and Chinese Buddhism, and recognizes the validity of non-Chinese religious traditions such as Christianity and...
. I-Kuan Tao followers believe that he is the first leader of the "White Sun" Era, the era of the apocalypse, thus he is the incarnation of Maitreya. - Mirza Ghulam AhmadMirza Ghulam AhmadMīrzā Ghulām Aḥmad was a religious figure from India and the founder of the Ahmadiyya Community. He claimed to be the Mujaddid of the 14th Islamic century, the promised Messiah , and the Mahdi awaited by the Muslims in the end days...
- Islamic Scholar, Author,Poet and Saint from the late 19th Century and early 20th Century who wrote over 80 books in his life in Urdu, Arabic and Persian. Ghulam Ahmad (as) claimed many titles given to him by God including being a universal Prophet for all religions including Buddhism. In his life, he wrote down revelations which he claimed he received from God in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Punjabi, English and Sanskrit. He acknowledged Siddartha Gautama as a true Prophet of God who preached the oness of a creator but his teachings were lost over the years which resulted in bleiving he never preached about a creator. He(as) also made several other claims of titles being given to him by God. He later found, in 1889,the Ahmadiyya Muslim CommunityAhmadiyya Muslim CommunityThe Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is the larger of two communities that arose from the Ahmadiyya movement founded in 1889 in India by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian . The original movement split into two factions soon after the death of the founder...
which exists to this day preaching Islam as a universal faith which came to support the true teachings of all other religions lost over the centuries. - Peter DeunovPeter DeunovPeter Konstantinov Deunov was a spiritual master and founder of a School of Esoteric Christianity. He is called Master Beinsa Douno by his followers.-Biography:Born on 11 July 1864 in Hadarcha , Bulgaria, around 60 km from Varna...
- also known as Master Beinsa Douno. Spiritual teacher, founder of a teaching and school of Esoteric ChristianityEsoteric ChristianityEsoteric Christianity is a term which refers to an ensemble of spiritual currents which regard Christianity as a mystery religion, and profess the existence and possession of certain esoteric doctrines or practices, hidden from the public but accessible only to a narrow circle of "enlightened",...
. Some students of Rudolf SteinerRudolf SteinerRudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
, an Austrian philosopher, have identified Master Beinsa Douno as a manifestation of Maitreya in the late 20th century. - Ruth Norman (Uriel) - founder of the Unarius Academy of ScienceUnarius Academy of ScienceUnarius is a non-profit organization founded in 1954 in Los Angeles, California and headquartered in El Cajon, California. The organization purports to advance a new interdimensional science of life based upon fourth dimensional physics principles. Unarius centers exist in Canada, Japan, Nigeria...
. Claims to have had fifty-five past lives, some included were reincarnations of the Buddha, SocratesSocratesSocrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
, King ArthurKing ArthurKing Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
, ConfuciusConfuciusConfucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
and a king of AtlantisAtlantisAtlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
. - L. Ron HubbardL. Ron HubbardLafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
- Founder of ScientologyScientologyScientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
, claimed in his book Hymn of Asia he was an incarnation of Buddha. - Samael Aun WeorSamael Aun WeorSamael Aun Weor , born Víctor Manuel Gómez Rodríguez, Colombian citizen and later Mexican, was an author, lecturer and founder of the 'Universal Christian Gnostic Movement' with his teaching of 'The Doctrine of Synthesis' of all religions in both their esoteric and exoteric aspects...
- stated in The Aquarian Message that "the Maitreya Buddha Samael is the Kalki Avatar of the New Age." The Kalkian Avatar and Maitreya Buddha, he claimed, are the same "White Rider" of the book of Revelation. - Jim JonesJim JonesJames Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip.Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in...
- leader of the Peoples TemplePeoples TemplePeoples Temple was a religious organization founded in 1955 by Jim Jones that, by the mid-1970s, included over a dozen locations in California including its headquarters in San Francisco...
cult. Possibly as a way to gather followers to his religious movement, he claimed to be a living incarnation the Buddha, as well as Jesus Christ, Pharaoh AkhenatenAkhenatenAkhenaten also spelled Echnaton,Ikhnaton,and Khuenaten;meaning "living spirit of Aten") known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV , was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt who ruled for 17 years and died perhaps in 1336 BC or 1334 BC...
, Father DivineFather DivineFather Divine , also known as Reverend M. J. Divine, was an African American spiritual leader from about 1907 until his death. His full self-given name was Reverend Major Jealous Divine, and he was also known as "the Messenger" early in his life...
and Vladimir LeninVladimir LeninVladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
. - Ariffin MohammedAriffin MohammedAriffin Mohammed is the leader and founder of Kerajaan Langit, , a sect founded by him in Malaysia. His movement had a commune based in Besut, Terengganu, that was demolished by the Malaysian government in August 2005...
- founder of a Malaysian cult, the Sky KingdomSky KingdomSky Kingdom is the name of the commune and sect founded by Ariffin Mohammed in Malaysia. The commune, based in Besut, Terengganu, was demolished by the government of Malaysia in August 2005. As of 2006, Ariffin Mohamed resides in exile in Narathiwat, Thailand, just over the border from Kelantan...
, now officially and in the open crushed by religious Muslim opposition. He also claimed to be an incarnation of the MahdiMahdiIn Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi is the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will stay on Earth for seven, nine or nineteen years- before the Day of Judgment and, alongside Jesus, will rid the world of wrongdoing, injustice and tyranny.In Shia Islam, the belief in the Mahdi is a "central religious...
, MuhammadMuhammadMuhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, JesusJesusJesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
and ShivaShivaShiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
. - Claude Vorilhon (Raël) - claims that, in 1973, he was visited by extraterrestrial beings who informed him that he was to found a movement which would bring the world to a new enlightenment. Published his first book in 1973, concerning the alleged encounter. The International Raelian Movement currently has approximately 60,000 followers in 86 countries worldwide. Claims to be Maitreya, based on evidence such as the traditional year of Maitreya's arrival, the Buddhist year 3000. There are two calendars in BuddhismBuddhismBuddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, corresponding to the Northern branch (1973 CE = "Northern" Buddhist year 3000) and Southern branch (1973 CE = "Southern" Buddhist year 2417). Other support for Raël's claim includes ancient Buddhist wall carvings allegedly depicting drawings of the arrival of UFOs in the mountains. According to the Raelian Movement, Rael's encounters with extraterrestrials took place in an inactive volcano which he had previously frequented. - Lu Sheng-yenLu Sheng-yenLu Sheng-Yen , commonly referred to by followers as 師尊 is the founder and spiritual leader of the True Buddha School, a new Buddhist sect with teachings taken from Sutrayana and Vajrayana , as well as Taoism...
- founder and spiritual teacher of the newly created Buddhist lineage called the True Buddha SchoolTrue Buddha SchoolThe True Buddha School is a modern Vajrayana Buddhist sect based in Taiwan and parts of East Asia with influence from Sutrayana and Taoism.Founded in the late 1980s, the founder of this sect is Lu Sheng-yen , often referred to by his followers as a tulku, a Tibetan term for a reincarnated teacher...
. Claims that, in the late 80s, Lu had reached enlightenment while training under a formless teacher. Lu claims to be an incarnation of Padmakumara, a deity in the Western Pure LandPure landA pure land, in Mahayana Buddhism, is the celestial realm or pure abode of a Buddha or Bodhisattva. The various traditions that focus on Pure Lands have been given the nomenclature Pure Land Buddhism. Pure lands are also evident in the literature and traditions of Taoism and Bön.The notion of 'pure...
kingdom. He has since then called himself "Living BuddhaRinpocheRinpoche or Rinboqê is an honorific used in Tibetan Buddhism. It literally means "precious one," and is used to address or describe Tibetan lamas and other high-ranking or respected teachers. This honor is generally bestowed on reincarnated lamas, or Tulkus, by default...
Lian Sheng". - Ching HaiSuma Ching HaiSupreme Master Ching Hai, , is the self-titled founder and spiritual teacher of the Quan Yin Method with an estimated 20,000 followers world wide....
- a meditation master who professes to be an incarnation of God, the Buddha, and the bodhisattva AvalokitesvaraAvalokitesvaraAvalokiteśvara is a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. He is one of the more widely revered bodhisattvas in mainstream Mahayana Buddhism....
. Popularly known as Guan Yin, for whom her meditation method is named. - Li HongzhiLi HongzhiLi Hongzhi is the founder and spiritual master of Falun Gong , a "system of mind-body cultivation" in the qigong tradition. Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong on 13 May 1992 in Changchun, and subsequently gave lectures and taught Falun Gong exercises across China...
- founder of Falun GongFalun GongFalun Gong is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi, through public lectures. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy...
. Said to have proclaimed himself a buddha, though he has denied this. However, many pictures of Li Hongzhi show him wearing a kasaya, or a monk's robe, posing like a Buddha. - Ron Spencer is a New AgeNew AgeThe New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
guru who is a former truck driverTruck driverA truck driver , is a person who earns a living as the driver of a truck, usually a semi truck, box truck, or dump truck.Truck drivers provide an essential service to...
who claims to be an incarnation of Maitreya. His organization is called The Tibetan Foundation. His church is a 501c3 nonprofit American Buddhist Church and UK Registered Charity in 1996 called The Church of Shambhala Vajradhara Maitreya Sangha. He has ashrams at Mount ShastaMount ShastaMount Shasta is located at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California and at is the second highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth highest in California...
in CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and in Omaha, NebraskaOmaha, NebraskaOmaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...
, as well as meditation centers in Sedona, ArizonaSedona, ArizonaSedona is a city that straddles the county line between Coconino and Yavapai counties in the northern Verde Valley region of the U.S. state of Arizona...
and Glastonbury, England. His teachings are an amalgamation of the Alice A. Bailey Theosophical teachings and Vajrayana Buddhism which he sells as tapes and CD’s. He and his followers make large vajraVajraVajra is a Sanskrit word meaning both thunderbolt and diamond...
s made from copper tubes fashioned into combinations of various Platonic solidPlatonic solidIn geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex polyhedron that is regular, in the sense of a regular polygon. Specifically, the faces of a Platonic solid are congruent regular polygons, with the same number of faces meeting at each vertex; thus, all its edges are congruent, as are its vertices and...
s with quartz crystals at the vertices, as well as various types of jewelry, which he and his followers sell at New Age fairs and on the InternetInternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. He calls these objects Metatronic Jewelry. A controversy arose recently when Ron Spencer claimed that his teachings have been authorized by the Dalai LamaDalai LamaThe Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...
, and he later even claimed that the Dalai Lama had chosen him to be the next Dalai Lama, but the Dalai Lama issued a statement that these claims were "nonsense" and there was never any such authorization. - Ram Bahadur BomjonRam Bahadur BomjonRam Bahadur Bomjon , also known as Palden Dorje and now Dharma Sangha, is from Ratanapuri village, Bara district, Nepal...
- a 19-year old Nepalese ascetic whom many have hailed as a new Buddha. According to his brother Gangajit, a "very clear and white" light "different from sunlight" emanated from his head. On November 8, 2005 Dorje arose and said to the public, "Tell the people not to call me a Buddha. I don't have the Buddha's energy. I am at the level of rinpocheRinpocheRinpoche or Rinboqê is an honorific used in Tibetan Buddhism. It literally means "precious one," and is used to address or describe Tibetan lamas and other high-ranking or respected teachers. This honor is generally bestowed on reincarnated lamas, or Tulkus, by default...
." Despite his protestations of not having attained enlightenment, many continue to insist he is a buddha.
See also
- List of avatar claimants
- List of bodhisattvas
- List of messiah claimants
- List of people who have claimed to be Jesus
- List of people who have been considered deities
- Maitreya (Theosophy)Maitreya (Theosophy)Maitreya or Lord Maitreya is described in Theosophical literature of the late 19th-century and subsequent periods as an advanced spiritual entity and high-ranking member of a hidden Spiritual Hierarchy, the so-called Masters of the Ancient Wisdom...
(modeled on Buddhist MaitreyaMaitreyaMaitreya , Metteyya , or Jampa , is foretold as a future Buddha of this world in Buddhist eschatology. In some Buddhist literature, such as the Amitabha Sutra and the Lotus Sutra, he or she is referred to as Ajita Bodhisattva.Maitreya is a bodhisattva who in the Buddhist tradition is to appear on...
) - Maitreya (Benjamin Creme)Maitreya (Benjamin Creme)In the Neo-Theosophical teachings of Benjamin Creme, founder of Share International, it is promulgated thatthe near-future coming of Maitreya sometime in the 21st century will fulfill not only Buddhist prophecies about the appearance of a future great teacher named Maitreya, but also the...
(Maitreya in Neo-TheosophyNeo-TheosophyThe term Neo-Theosophy is a term, originally derogatory, used by the followers of Blavatsky to denominate the system of Theosophical ideas expounded by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater following the death of Madame Blavatsky in 1891...
) - People claiming to be the MahdiPeople claiming to be the MahdiIn Shia and Sunni eschatology, the Mahdi is a Messianic figure who, it is believed, will appear on Earth before the Day of Judgment and, alongside Jesus, will rid the world of wrongdoing, injustice and tyranny...