Maitreya

Classical Buddhist texts and chronicles depict Maitreya as a bodhisattva who, having perfected the perfections over vast kalpic time, currently dwells in Tushita heaven awaiting his final rebirth as the future Buddha who will succeed Gautama (Shakyamuni) and restore the Dharma when it has decayed. This future-Buddha schema appears across Pāli and Sanskrit traditions and is reflected in multiple sutras and later chronicle literature that treat him as the next (often numbered as the successor in the current eon) Buddha. Separately, late 19th–20th century Theosophical sources reframe Maitreya as a high-ranking member of a hidden spiritual hierarchy (the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom), a distinct metaphysical reinterpretation that the classical Buddhist corpus does not entail.

Canonical textual excerpts supplied do not preserve a single, authoritative physical description; rather, Maitreya has long been a major focus of Buddhist iconography and visualization literature. From the early centuries CE he is frequently represented in Gandharan, Mathura, and other South Asian and Central Asian art—thus there are standard iconographic motifs in devotional practice and representation, and Mahāyāna visualization sutras (e.g., sutras on the visualization of Maitreya’s ascending birth in Tuṣita) provide meditative imagery used in cultic contexts. The sources provided do not quote a definitive canonical bodily description in narrative form.

Buddhist traditions portray Maitreya primarily in soteriological and prophetic terms: as a future Buddha who will be reborn on earth to teach and re-establish the Dharma when Gautama’s teachings have declined. Mahāyāna sutras depict him as a teacher and revealer who appears in sutras, preaches, and serves as the object of devotional and visualization practices; some traditions and commentators recount visionary encounters or claimed revelations attributed to him. Theosophical sources recast him as an advanced spiritual entity and a senior teacher within a hidden hierarchy guiding human spiritual evolution; these modern esoteric claims are a separate framing rather than a simple extension of canonical Buddhist accounts.