Henro Jacket Siddhaṃ

Alain sent in this image of a Siddhaṃ character from a Japanese Henro, or pilgrim's, jacket. He wondered what it says.

The character is yu.

In Shingon this is the bīja or seed-syllable of the Bodhisattva Maitreya or Miroku Bosatsu (弥勒菩薩) in Japanese. Maitreya will be the next Buddha, and is said to waiting in the Tusita Heaven realm for the right time to appear. Perhaps unfortunately for us this time will be billions of years in the future, and will occur only when all the last traces of Śakyamuni's teachings have disappeared.

His mantra in Shingon is: oṃ maitreya svāhā

The Tibetan traditions use a different bīja - maiṃ - and mantra for Maitreya which are featured on the Visible Mantra Maitreya page. The mantra being: oṃ maitri mahāmaitri maitriye svāhā.