Maitreya

Maitreya is the future buddha—the next awakened teacher said to appear in a coming age—and, in a separate sense, the traditional 'author' (Maitreyanātha) to whom certain foundational Yogācāra texts are ascribed, having supposedly been revealed to Asaṅga. Both senses are kept distinct here, and neither is a datable historical author: the first is a celestial figure of Buddhist cosmology, the second a traditional attribution rather than a recoverable person. Included as a descriptor, not a biography.