Maitreya Buddha Thangka Paintings

Maitreya Buddha thangkas – Maitreya is the Future Buddha – the only figure in the Buddhist pantheon whose Buddhahood lies ahead of us rather than behind. He waits now in Tusita Heaven as a Bodhisattva, and tradition holds that he will descend to take birth in this world when the teachings of Shakyamuni have been entirely forgotten and sentient beings have fallen into disarray, to turn the wheel of Dharma once again for an age that has lost it. His name comes from the Sanskrit maitri, meaning loving-kindness, and it is that quality above all that he embodies. In Tibetan he is known as Jampa, and in East Asian traditions as Mile or Miroku. Read more about his place among the Buddhas in our guide to the Buddhist pantheon.

Because he has not yet taken his final birth, Maitreya is painted differently from the Buddhas who have. He wears the crown, jewelry, and royal golden robes of a Bodhisattva rather than the patched robes of a monastic, and he is shown seated upright in a chair with his feet down rather than folded in full lotus – a posture read as readiness, the Future Buddha poised to rise and descend the moment the world has need of him. His right hand is lowered at his side, while his left holds the stem of a lotus between thumb and finger; the flower rises over his left shoulder and opens behind his left ear, and within the blossom sits a Dharma wheel, the teaching he will bring when he returns.

The landscape behind him is Tusita Heaven itself, and it rewards close looking: gold glittering across terraces and thrones, a verdant countryside opening beyond, and dragons moving through the clouds above. A Maitreya thangka is therefore not only an image of a deity but a window onto the realm where he waits, and devotees use it as a support for visualizing that realm as much as the figure at its center.

Every painting here is hand painted on cotton canvas in Patan, Nepal, by Himalayan artists trained in the traditional schools, working to the iconometric grids that govern Maitreya’s proportions, posture, and attributes, and finished with genuine 24K gold detailing applied by hand to the crown, jewelry, throne, and aureole. Sizes run from around 33 inches, suited to a home shrine or meditation room, up to major works of 47 inches intended as the central image of a shrine room or Dharma center. Browse the full range of Tibetan thangka paintings, or see Maitreya rendered in copper alloy among our Maitreya Buddha statues.