Miroku- Japanese GodDeity"The Future Buddha"

The Waiting Buddha

Miroku Bosatsu is the Japanese form of Maitreya, the Buddha who has not yet arrived. According to the Miroku Geshōkyō, he waits in Tuṣita Heaven while Śākyamuni's teachings decline in the world below. When the last sūtra has crumbled and the last monk has died, Miroku will descend, achieve perfect enlightenment beneath a dragon flower tree, and teach again.

Japanese Buddhists fixed on the waiting. The concept of mappō, the final degenerate age of the dharma, gripped Japan from the late Heian period onward. Monks calculated that mappō had begun in 1052 CE. The world they saw confirmed it. In that atmosphere, Miroku was not a distant doctrinal promise. He was the only hope left.

From Korea to Kyoto

Miroku worship reached Japan from the Korean peninsula during the Asuka period, carried alongside the sūtras and ritual objects that brought Buddhism to the archipelago. The Nihon Shoki records that in 603, Prince Shōtoku Taishi received a pensive Miroku statue from the Korean kingdom of Silla. He gave it to Hatano Kawakatsu of the Hata clan, a community with roots in the Korean peninsula. The Hata clan built Kōryū-ji temple in Kyoto to house the image. It is the oldest temple in the city.

The Pensive Figure

The Kōryū-ji Miroku was carved from a single block of red pine with camphor wood additions. It stands 123.5 centimeters tall. The bodhisattva sits in hanka shiyui, the half-lotus pensive pose: one leg crossed, one hand raised, the fingertips barely touching the cheek. The pose came from Gandhāran Buddhist art, traveled through China and Korea, and arrived in Japan already centuries old.

The statue was designated the first National Treasure of Japan on June 9, 1951. A near-twin in gilt bronze sits in Seoul, Korea's National Treasure No. 83, the two images so alike they must share a common workshop or model. At Kōryū-ji, the wooden Miroku sits in a dim hall, fingers still raised to the cheek, still contemplating. The descent has not come.