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:
“...there was the annual Fourth of July picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. ...I thought it was ridiculous to have to go there in a skirt. But I did it anyway because it was something that might possibly have an effect. I remember walking around in my little white blouse and skirt and tourists standing there eating their ice cream cones and watching us like the zoo had opened.”
—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)
“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)