More than a thousand years ago there was a learned Chinese monk whom everybody called Pu-Tai which means, "Cloth Bag". He got the name because of his habit of carrying a bag made of hemp, wherever he went. He had a wrinkled forehead, and a large protruding belly that he left uncovered. He was always cheerful.
Pu-Tai went about giving advice and teaching those who cared to hear him. He was good at telling fortunes and seemed to have an uncanny ability to predict weather. If he wore wet sandals everybody knew it would rain, no matter how bright the sun; if he had a hat on, it was a sure sign that the day would be unbearably hot. However, it looks as if he used these devices merely to warn others, because he himself seemed unaffected by the weather. Sometimes in winter he would be seen sleeping comfortably in the snow with him stomach bared to the elements.
One day he was found dead in a sitting posture in the corridor of a temple. A verse he left behind seemed to suggest that he was a manifestation of the Buddha Maitreya, the Buddha who is yet to come. He began to be worshipped. An image of the Laughing Buddha, as he eventually came to be called because of cheerful demeanour, is carved on the hills surrounding the ancient temple of Lingyin in Hangzhou, in China. Dedicated to him is a couplet that reads: "His belly is big enough to contain all intolerable things in the world. His mouth is ever ready to laugh at all snobbish persons under heaven."
Perhaps because a big belly suggests prosperity, the Laughing Buddha came to be associated with good fortune. Today his statuettes can be found in homes throughout the world.
Courtesy: Young World, Supplement to The Hindu, October 19, 2002
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