🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Thoughts on carved Buddha

[chadkeath]

Hi and thank you in advance for your help thoughts on this. I have had this for a long time. It is a carved laughing buddha. Carved from wood. The piece is cool. Its hard to put a date on this. As you can see this has age and lots of wear. Ive read these could of been outside temples or inside them. Wanting your thoughts.

 

[DizzyDigger]

Love that look on his face. Have you done anything to preserve
the wood?

 

[Red-Coat]

Cool figurine. It does look as if it’s been outside for much of its life, which makes it difficult to date, but certainly vintage and probably antique. There’s a similar 6-inch one here for about $50:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/169...how_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details

Although popularly nicknamed the “Laughing/Fat Buddha”, the representation is not actually of Buddha. It’s “Budai”, also known as “Hotei” or “Pu-Tai”… the god of fortune, happiness and abundance; guardian of children; patron of diviners and barmen; and also the god of popularity.

He was a semi-historical itinerant Chinese Zen priest/monk with a recorded death in March 916 AD who has become amalgamated with a pre-Zen Buddhism Japanese manifestation of Miroku… the patron of those who could not be saved by the beliefs of Buddha.

Small ones often stand outside homes and larger ones outside temples, for believers to rub the figure’s large belly in expectation of bringing good luck, happiness, wealth and prosperity.