is most fundamentally predicated on the physical re-
turn of the Jews to Palestine. The Christian Book of
Revelation, as well, emphasizes the physicality of the
millennium, with resurrection of the body and the
founding of the Kingdom of God on earth. This type
of millenarianism, which is predicated on the arrival
of a sacred figure from heaven, is referred to as the de-
scendingmotif. It is distinguished from belief in a post-
mortem paradise, often described as a place where
purified souls await the final apocalypse. The ascent of
souls to this heavenly kingdom marks this as the as-
cendingmotif.
Maitreya in South and Central Asia
Millenarian thought and devotion to Maitreya have
appeared in almost every manifestation of the Bud-
dhist tradition and may reflect pre-Buddhist themes.
The arrival of a messianic and triumphant figure is
based on the Indian ideal of the cakravartin, a virtu-
ous universal monarch who is divinely destined to
unify the earthly realm. Both the Buddha himself and
Buddhist political figures such as King AS ́OKAand the
Japanese prince SHOTOKU were identified with this
monarch. Early contact between Buddhism and
Zoroastrianism (from Iran and Bactria) may have in-
fluenced this belief with the addition of beliefs con-
cerning Mithra, a deity associated with apocalyptic
change, and the image of Saošyant, a divine savior who
would appear on earth at the end of twelve cosmic cy-
cles, purge the world of sin, and establish an immor-
tal material paradise. Scholars are undecided as to the
exact relation of these traditions to the development
of Buddhist millenarianism and Maitreya worship.
Maitreya is not discussed in any of the canonical
South Asian texts and is mentioned only tangentially
in the canonical literature of the THERAVADA, but he
catapults to prominence in the MAHAVASTU(Great
Story), a central text of the MAHASAMGHIKA SCHOOL.
This text, which outlines the theory of bodhisattvas as
supernatural beings, places Maitreya at the head of a
list of future buddhas. The Mahayana sutras continue
in this line, portraying Maitreya as a worthy monk,
who spent lifetimes developing in wisdom and preach-
ing the dharma before being reborn as a bodhisattva
in the Tusita heaven, where he awaits his incarnation
as the buddha of the next epoch.
This latter event, however, is spoken of in relatively
vague terms, and it is destined to occur only in the very
distant future (five billion years, by some accounts),
according to cycles of growth and decay. An early Bud-
dhist idea says that the universe oscillates between
growth and decay in cycles called kalpas.All things,
from the dharma to human life span (which can be as
long as eighty thousand years or as short as ten) de-
pend on this cycle, which is currently in an advanced
state of decay, a phenomenon known as the DECLINE
OF THE DHARMA. Once the nadir of this cycle has
passed, the universe will again begin a period of
growth, and as it approaches its peak, a cakravartin
king will appear to usher in Maitreya’s advent and the
Maitreyan Golden Age.This formulation is significant because it placed the
return of Maitreya in the distant future and says that
the human world must first pass the nadir of the cos-
mic cycle before this can happen. Because things would
get worse before they got better, people placed their
hopes on the ascending motif of individual salvation,
such as rebirth in the Pure Land or Tusita heaven,
rather than the millennium.Buddhist millenarianism in China
It was in China that the worship of Maitreya and tra-
dition of longing for a distant golden age evolved into
millenarian movements. This transformation hap-
pened for three reasons. First, when Buddhism took
root in China during the first few centuries C.E., it en-
countered a well-established tradition of Daoist mil-
lenarianism. This tradition encompassed many of the
elements that would come to be associated with Bud-
dhist millenarianism in East Asia, such as the tripartite
division of sacred time. The Daoist millenarian tradi-
tion was focused on the immanent return of a tran-
scendent manifestation of Laozi called Lord Lao on
High (taishang laojun), who would establish a millen-
nial kingdom called the Great Peace (taiping). From the
second through fourth centuries C.E., this belief served
as the seed for a number of sizable rebellions, includ-
ing one that was able to establish a viable, although
short-lived, state in the mountainous southwest.The second innovation was the restructuring of the
theory of cosmic rise and decline so as to place the en-
thronement of Maitreya Buddha at the nadir of the cy-
cle, rather than at its peak. These ideas were developed
in Chinese apocryphal sutras from the sixth century,
which discussed the arrival of Maitreya as a vast cleans-
ing that would see a cosmic battle between bodhisatt-
vas and demons, following which a pure and perfect
world would be created. This reinterpretation not only
made the arrival of the millennial event more imma-
nent, it also located it at the lowest point of humanMILLENARIANISM ANDMILLENARIANMOVEMENTS