Fu Ta-shih
Fu Ta-shih
[傅大士] (497–569) (PY Fu Dashi; Jpn Fu-daishi)
A lay Buddhist in China who was revered as a reincarnation of Bodhisattva Maitreya. He won the respect of Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty, who was a devout Buddhist. His real name was Fu Hsi, and he was commonly known as Fu Ta-shih (ta-shih means great man). A layperson with a wife and children, he was not only an earnest practitioner of Buddhism but also a philanthropist, generously bestowing his own wealth upon the people. When he erected Shuang-lin-ssu temple, he built a sutra repository on the premises to house the entire collection of Buddhist scriptures. The repository was unique in that it had a revolving stand with eight faces for storing the scriptures. Later many temples adopted this type of sutra repository.
