List of Buddha claimants

The people described below have:

• claimed to have attained enlightenment and become buddhas
• claimed to be manifestations of bodhisattvas
• identified themselves as Gautama Buddha (though most schools of Buddhism believe that the Buddha entered parinirvana and extinguished rebirth), or
• been honored as buddhas or bodhisattvas due to: being identified as the rebirth of one such (e.g., the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama); popularity; evidence in the form of auspicious signs.

Many people in recent times have also claimed to be Maitreya, the successor of Gautama Buddha, the historical founder of Buddhism. Many have used the Maitreya incarnation claim to form a new Buddhist sect or a new religious movement or cult.

Claimants

• Guan Yu - legendary warrior during the late Eastern Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms period in ancient China. Today, many people, including both police and mafia, consider him to be a divine object of reverence. In certain schools of Taoism and Chinese Buddhism he has been deemed divine or semi-divine. Reverence for him may date back to the Sui dynasty. Many Buddhists accept him as a bodhisattva that guards the Buddhist faith and temples. He is known as Sangharama in Sanskrit.
• Wu Zetian - the only ruling female emperor in the history of China, and founder of her own dynasty, the Second Zhou dynasty. Ruled under the name Emperor Shengshen. Gained popular support by advocating Buddhism but ruthlessly persecuted her opponents within the royal family (by cutting off their arms and legs and inserting them in jars) and the nobility. Proclaimed herself an incarnation of Maitreya and made Luoyang the "holy capital".
• Gung Ye - Korean warlord and king of the short-lived state of Taebong during the 10th century. Claimed to be the living incarnation of Maitreya and ordered his subjects to worship him. His claim was rejected by most Buddhist monks and later he was dethroned and killed by his own servants.
• Nurhaci - also known as Emperor Tai Zu. Founder and leader of the Qing Dynasty. Believed he was a manifestation of Manjushri Bodhisattva.
• Lu Zhongyi - the 17th patriarch of the I-Kuan Tao. I-Kuan Tao followers believe that he is the first leader of the "White Sun" Era, the era of the apocalypse, thus he is the incarnation of Maitreya.
• Mirza Ghulam Ahmad- Islamic Scholar, Author,Poet and Saint from the late 19th Century and early 20th Century who wrote over 80 books in his life in Urdu, Arabic and Persian. Ghulam Ahmad (as) claimed many titles given to him by God including being a universal Prophet for all religions including Buddhism. In his life, he wrote down revelations which he claimed he received from God in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Punjabi, English and Sanskrit. He acknowledged Siddartha Gautama as a true Prophet of God who preached the oness of a creator but his teachings were lost over the years which resulted in bleiving he never preached about a creator. He(as) also made several other claims of titles being given to him by God. He later found, in 1889,the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community which exists to this day preaching Islam as a universal faith which came to support the true teachings of all other religions lost over the centuries.
• Peter Deunov - also known as Master Beinsa Douno. Spiritual teacher, founder of a teaching and school of Esoteric Christianity. Some students of Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher, have identified Master Beinsa Douno as a manifestation of Maitreya in the late 20th century.
• Ruth Norman (Uriel) - founder of the Unarius Academy of Science. Claims to have had fifty-five past lives, some included were reincarnations of the Buddha, Socrates, King Arthur, Confucius and a king of Atlantis.
• Samael Aun Weor - stated in The Aquarian Message that "the Maitreya Buddha Samael is the Kalki Avatar of the New Age." The Kalkian Avatar and Maitreya Buddha, he claimed, are the same "White Rider" of the book of Revelation.
• Jim Jones - leader of the Peoples Temple cult. Possibly as a way to gather followers to his religious movement, he claimed to be a living incarnation the Buddha, as well as Jesus Christ, Pharaoh Akhenaten, Father Divine and Vladimir Lenin.
• Ariffin Mohammed - founder of a Malaysian cult, the Sky Kingdom, now officially and in the open crushed by religious Muslim opposition. He also claimed to be an incarnation of the Mahdi, Muhammad, Jesus and Shiva.
• Claude Vorilhon (Raël) - claims that, in 1973, he was visited by extraterrestrial beings who informed him that he was to found a movement which would bring the world to a new enlightenment. Published his first book in 1973, concerning the alleged encounter. The International Raelian Movement currently has approximately 60,000 followers in 86 countries worldwide. Claims to be Maitreya, based on evidence such as the traditional year of Maitreya's arrival, the Buddhist year 3000. There are two calendars in Buddhism, corresponding to the Northern branch (1973 CE = "Northern" Buddhist year 3000) and Southern branch (1973 CE = "Southern" Buddhist year 2417). Other support for Raël's claim includes ancient Buddhist wall carvings allegedly depicting drawings of the arrival of UFOs in the mountains. According to the Raelian Movement, Rael's encounters with extraterrestrials took place in an inactive volcano which he had previously frequented.
• Lu Sheng-yen - founder and spiritual teacher of the newly created Buddhist lineage called the True Buddha School. Claims that, in the late 80s, Lu had reached enlightenment while training under a formless teacher. Lu claims to be an incarnation of Padmakumara, a deity in the Western Pure Land kingdom. He has since then called himself "Living Buddha Lian Sheng".
• Ching Hai - a meditation master who professes to be an incarnation of God, the Buddha, and the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. Popularly known as Guan Yin, for whom her meditation method is named.
• Ron Spencer is a New Age guru who is a former truck driver who claims to be an incarnation of Maitreya. His organization is called The Tibetan Foundation. His church is a 501c3 nonprofit American Buddhist Church and UK Registered Charity in 1996 called The Church of Shambhala Vajradhara Maitreya Sangha. He has ashrams at Mount Shasta in California and in Omaha, Nebraska, as well as meditation centers in Sedona, Arizona and Glastonbury, England. His teachings are an amalgamation of the Alice A. Bailey Theosophical teachings and Vajrayana Buddhism which he sells as tapes and CD’s. He and his followers make large vajras made from copper tubes fashioned into combinations of various Platonic solids with quartz crystals at the vertices, as well as various types of jewelry, which he and his followers sell at New Age fairs and on the Internet. He calls these objects Metatronic Jewelry. A controversy arose recently when Ron Spencer claimed that his teachings have been authorized by the Dalai Lama, and he later even claimed that the Dalai Lama had chosen him to be the next Dalai Lama, but the Dalai Lama issued a statement that these claims were "nonsense" and there was never any such authorization.
• Ram Bahadur Bomjon - a 19-year old Nepalese ascetic whom many have hailed as a new Buddha. According to his brother Gangajit, a "very clear and white" light "different from sunlight" emanated from his head. On November 8, 2005 Dorje arose and said to the public, "Tell the people not to call me a Buddha. I don't have the Buddha's energy. I am at the level of rinpoche." Despite his protestations of not having attained enlightenment, many continue to insist he is a buddha.

See also

• List of avatar claimants
• List of bodhisattvas
• List of messiah claimants
• List of people who have claimed to be Jesus
• List of people who have been considered deities
• Maitreya (Theosophy) (modeled on Buddhist Maitreya)
• Maitreya (Benjamin Creme) (Maitreya in Neo-Theosophy)
• People claiming to be the Mahdi

Bibliography

• Hogue, John Messiahs: The Visions and Prophecies for the Second Coming (1999) Elements Books ISBN 1-86204-549-6