The New International Encyclopædia/Maitreya

MAITREYA, mī̇-trā′yȧ, A proper name derived from Sanskrit mitra, ‘friend,’ and designating in its Pali form Metteyya, the future Buddha, the Buddha of Friendship, who will appear 5000 years after Gautama. At present he is believed to be in the Tushita Heaven of the Blest. He is known in Tibet as Jampa (Tib. Byams-pa, pronounced Jam-pa or Cham-pa) and is believed to be of gigantic size, so that colossal statues are used to represent him. Consult: Rhys, David, Buddhism (London, 1900); Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Thibet (ib., 1868); Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet (ib., 1895).