Maitreya

<p ><b>Maitreya</b>&nbsp;(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit" title="Sanskrit" >Sanskrit</a>),&nbsp;<b>Metteyya</b>&nbsp;(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81li" title="Pāli" class="mw-redirect" >Pāli</a>),&nbsp;<b>Maithree</b>&nbsp;(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhala_language" title="Sinhala language" >Sinhala</a>),&nbsp;<b>Jampa</b>&nbsp;(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Tibetan" title="Standard Tibetan" >Tibetan</a>) or&nbsp;<b>Di-Lặc</b>&nbsp;(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_language" title="Vietnamese language" >Vietnamese</a>), is regarded as a future&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhahood" title="Buddhahood" >Buddha</a>&nbsp;of this world in&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_eschatology" title="Buddhist eschatology" >Buddhist eschatology</a>. In some Buddhist literature, such as the&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitabha_Sutra" title="Amitabha Sutra" >Amitabha Sutra</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Sutra" title="Lotus Sutra" >Lotus Sutra</a>, he is referred to as&nbsp;<i>Ajita</i>&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva" title="Bodhisattva" >Bodhisattva</a>.

Maitreya is a bodhisattva who in the&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist" title="Buddhist" class="mw-redirect" >Buddhist</a>&nbsp;tradition is to appear on Earth, achieve complete&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment(Buddhism)" title="Enlightenment (Buddhism)" class="mw-redirect" >enlightenment</a>, and teach the pure&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma(Buddhism)" title="Dharma (Buddhism)" >dharma</a>. According to scriptures, Maitreya will be a successor of the historic&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha" title="Gautama Buddha" >Śākyamuni Buddha</a>. The prophecy of the arrival of Maitreya refers to a time when the Dharma will have been forgotten by most on<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jambudvipa" title="Jambudvipa" >Jambudvipa</a>. It is found in the canonical literature of all major Buddhist schools (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theravada" title="Theravada" >Theravāda</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana" title="Mahayana" >Mahāyāna</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana" title="Vajrayana" >Vajrayāna</a>), and is accepted by most Buddhists as a statement about an event that will take place when the Dharma will have been mostly forgotten on Earth.</p>