Budai (Qieci)

Historically attested as the monk Qieci (契此), Budai was a wandering, sack-carrying mendicant active by the Later Liang period. Late tradition and some Chan sources identify him with Maitreya (a dated note claims an incarnation identification on 28 March 917). Over time Chan masters and artists incorporated his life and image into Chan pedagogical practice and popular veneration, reinterpreting his eccentric, thaumaturgic anecdotes as emblematic and didactic rather than primarily occult.

Depicted as a fat, bald monk wearing a simple robe, almost always shown smiling or laughing and carrying a large cloth sack (the name 'Budai' literally means 'cloth sack'). Common iconography emphasizes a large exposed stomach (read as a symbol of abundance or forgiveness), often includes children or jovial public contexts, and varies regionally and historically (earlier Chinese ink treatments differ from later colorful Japanese sculptural works; some Japanese variants show localized motifs such as occasional tobacco-pipe imagery in specific depictions).

Traditional stories credit Budai with folkloric abilities such as predicting people's fortunes and even weather patterns; he is portrayed as able to ward off cold in anecdotes and as possessing a knack for bringing food, laughter, and good fortune to those he met. Scholarly interpretation of Chan reception emphasizes that such occult attributions were often 'domesticated'—Chan leaders played down miraculous aspects and highlighted Budai's this-worldly, trickster-like charisma as a pedagogical tool to attract broad audiences rather than endorsing systematic thaumaturgy.