Buddha Buddha Buddha

On my last day in Penang I visited a couple of the Buddhist temples, positioned opposite each other not far from the glitzy hotel strip which is the home of the 'G'. The first temple was the Wat Chaiyamangalaram temple, a Thai buddhist temple. which is the home of one of the largest reclining Buddhas around, built in 1958

Across the road is a Burmese Buddhist temple, featuring a less relaxed looking Buddha

along with vignettes illustrating his life
The Burmese temple also included over a dozen different Buddha statues, showing how the image of Buddha changes from country to country. That helped answer a question that had been bugging me for a while - why so many representations of Buddha? Buddha was traditionally an Indian prince & a warrior before he decided on his career change (an early mid-life crisis?), and each culture shows what was their ideal representation of a warrior of the time. An American Buddha statue built now would probably be wearing a Seal Team 6 uniform.

Incidentally the 'fat Buddha' image beloved of hippy cafes everywhere is a little different - that is a representation of a Chinese monk called 'Budai'. He was a major figure in Chinese folklore who was intergrated into the Chinese take on Buddhism, to the joy of lardy practitioners worldwide....