The Fat, Laughing Buddha Statue Is the Buddha

That cheerful potbellied figure is not the Buddha. He is Budai, also called Hotei in Japan, a Chinese folkloric monk from roughly the 10th century, associated with contentment, generosity, and good fortune, which is why people rub his belly for luck. The actual historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, lived around 2,500 years ago in ancient India and is traditionally depicted as a slim, serene figure seated in meditation, often having practised severe asceticism; he is not fat and not laughing. Budai came to be seen in some traditions as a future Buddha or an embodiment of a bodhisattva, which is how the two got tangled together in the popular Western imagination, helped along by every shop that labels the round statue 'Buddha'. So the lucky belly you rub belongs to a medieval Chinese monk, not the founder of the religion. Same broad tradition, very different person, and a good few centuries and several hundred kilojoules apart.