Laughing Buddha is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.
He has become incorporated into Buddhist, Taoist and Shinto culture and is based on an eccentric Chinese Chán monk who lived in the time of the Liang Dynasty. His image graces many temples, restaurants, amulets, and businesses. He is a deity of contentment and abundance. He is almost always represented as carrying a cloth or linen sack, which never empties, and is filled with many precious items, including rice plants (indicating wealth), sweets for children, food, small mammals, and the woes of the world. Sometimes it can be filled with children, as is seen in the figure. Children are seen as some of those precious items of this world. His duty is patron of the weak, the poor and children.