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Hotei or Pu-Tai (布袋羅漢 literally cloth sack) is better known as the obese Laughing Buddha. In China, he is called Pu-Tai or Mi Le Fo and dubbed the Loving or Friendly One. He has become incorporated into Buddhist & Shinto culture and is based on an eccentric Chinese Ch'an ( Zen) monk. His image graces many temples, restaurants, and amulets. Hotei has become a deity of contentment and abundance, Taoist in origin. Hotei persists in Japanese folklore as one of the seven happy gods, or shichi fukujin.
The Laughing Buddha derives from the time of the Liang Dynasty in China. Hotei is theorized to have begun as a real Buddhist monk in China over 1,000 years ago. He was considered a man of good and loving character. It was said of Hotei's benevolent nature, that he was to be regarded as an incarnation of the bodhisattva soon to be Maitreya (the Future Buddha), but this claim was only allegorical and due to his large protruding stomach & smile, he was caricatured as the "Laughing Buddha."
The image of Hotei is almost always seen carrying a cloth or linen sack (that which never empties) which is filled with many precious items, including rice plants (indicating wealth), candy for children, food, or the woes of the world. Sometimes it can be filled with children as they are seen as some of those precious items of this world. His duty is patron of the weak, poor and children. In some scenes he may be found sitting on a cart drawn by boys, or wielding a fan called an oogi (said to be a "wish giving" fan -- in the distant past, this type of fan was used by the aristocracy to indicate to vassals that their requests would be granted).
The statue depicts a stout, smiling or laughing bald man in robes with a largely exposed pot belly stomach symbolic for happiness, good luck, and plenitude. Some sculpture has small children at his feet. Another item that is usually seen with the Hotei figure, is a begging bowl; to represent his Buddhist nature. All of these images display Hotei as a wandering monk who goes around and takes the sadness from people of this world. He most certainly is a loving and cheerful character, strikingly similar to Santa Claus in the West and is a common statuette found in homes and businesses in China and Japan.
The basis of belief in the Laughing Buddha is mainly legend. As it goes, if a person is to rub his belly, it brings forth wealth, good luck, and prosperity. He is often admired for his happiness, plenitude, and supposedly wisdom of contentment.
Chinese Buddhists have adopted Hotei as the Laughing Buddha into the Mahayana Buddhist pantheon and his image may be found in the first hall of many Buddhist monasteries. Ch'an temples will usually have Hotei located at their entrances & courtyards. Eventually, he became the object of popular worship as a god of good luck and prosperity. Later enthusiasts attributed divinity to the figure and gave the already appointed title of Maitreya Buddha to him.
In Japan, Hotei is also seen as a one of the Shichi Fukujin, the Seven Japanese Shinto-gods of Luck. He is supposedly the only member of the seven based on an actual person. Back when Buddhist missionary monks were delivering the message & way of Gautama Buddha onto the islands of Japan, they devised a method to more efficiently reach the local Shinto inhabitants. By manifesting Buddhist principles, with Shinto KamiKami is the Japanese word for god . The word is used to indicate any sort of god or "beings of a higher place", embracing both a number of spirits and the God of the Abrahamic religions. Because Japanese lacks a plural form, it is rarely clear if "kami" m, the monks were successful. Kami are seen as Shinto gods and were worshiped as such. The Buddhist monastics were able to better communicate their ideology to Japanese natives by using the Kami's as examples in common Buddhist practice. Thus, Buddhism became very widely accepted in Japan and from one of these manifestations, came Hotei.