White Lotus (白蓮教 Pinyin: báiliánjiào Wade-Giles: Pai-lien chiao) was a type of Buddhist sectarianism that appealed to many Han Chinese, who found solace in worship of the "Unborn or Eternal Venerable Mother" (trad.: 無生老母, simplified: 无生老母), who was to gather all her children at the millennium into one family.
The doctrine of the White Lotus included a forecast of the imminent advent of the future Buddha Maitreya.
Read more about White Lotus: Origins, White Lotus Revolution, Later Rebellions
Famous quotes containing the words white and/or lotus:
“Verily, the Indian has but a feeble hold on his bow now; but the curiosity of the white man is insatiable, and from the first he has been eager to witness this forest accomplishment. That elastic piece of wood with its feathered dart, so sure to be unstrung by contact with civilization, will serve for the type, the coat-of-arms of the savage. Alas for the Hunter Race! the white man has driven off their game, and substituted a cent in its place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:
Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)