What deities are in Buddhism?
There are many different forms of Buddhism. Unless I’m mistaken, all forms of Buddhism are atheism, (which means no God.) Buddha comes in two forms. There is the Buddha that you see in statues and the Buddha that sought to find inner peace (who refused to be worshiped or made into a statue.) Neither of them are considered a deity.
There are two major types of Buddhism (Mahayana and Theravada sometimes called Hinayana), and many subgenres of these. In Tibet, the style of Buddhism is called Vajrayana (Esoteric or Tantric Buddhism). In classical pure Buddhism, there were no gods. The Buddha was an agnostic. He claimed not to know if there were gods, and said that even if they were they had little influence on humans. However, many of the followers of Buddhism came from societies with many gods, so they combined the old beliefs with Buddhism to make syncretistic Buddhist/ancestor worship religions. Mahayana Buddhism is mainly found in China and Vietnam, while Theravada, is mainly in Sri Lanka and South East Asia. The gods worshipped by these peoples will vary from place to place, but you will find some common ones. In Mahayana, the most common are Kuan Yin, the Medicine Buddha, the Laughing Buddha and the Green and White Taras. Others include Jade Maiden Golden Youth, Kuan-Ti (Sangharama), Wei-To (Skanda)and the Fou
