Sui Wendi Sui Wendi followed the example of the Indian king Ashoka (known as the wheel king in Buddhism) and "preached the law to protect education". The 84,000 pagodas built by King Ashoka were all built on the same day. Therefore, in June of the first year of Renshou (601), 65,438+03, Emperor Wendi of Sui Dynasty celebrated his 60th birthday, and ordered to build 30 pagodas in 30 states to support the relics. 10 At noon on June 5th, 30 states were "under one roof" (relics enter the stone letter). At that time, Jingzhou belonged to the gateway of Chang 'an, the capital city. In 60 1 year, a monk sent 14 pieces of relics to Jingchuan and built an underground palace in Daxing National Temple. On September 9, 690, 67-year-old Wu Zetian ascended the throne, calling herself the "Holy Emperor". In the era when men are superior to women, Wu Zetian's claim to be emperor was opposed and obstructed by all parties. Wu Zetian respected the story of women's change as the theme of The Great Cloud Sutra, which was published in the world in July of the same year. In 690 AD 10, Wu Zetian ordered the capital city (Chang 'an and Luoyang) and the states to build Dayun Temple to collect Dayun Sutra, and sent thousands of monks to various places to explain it. Jingzhou Dayun Temple was built on the site of Daxing National Temple. During the construction, relics provided by the Sui Dynasty were found. The queen's move to build Dayun Temple happened to meet the Buddha relic, which was considered as a lucky coincidence. So she asked the master who made the gold and silver wares to make copper, silver and gold coffins, put 14 pieces of Buddhist bone relics in sulfur glass bottles, matched them with stone letters, engraved with dynasty numbers, built underground palaces with bricks, and built pagodas and temples.
The second Buddhist bone
(Tang Fang Ying Gu)
1at 22: 20 on may 8, 987, archaeologists opened the iron letter on the top of the tomb, which was treasured in the white marble tomb in the underground palace. There is a big iron lock on the iron letter, which is rusty. It turns out that the opening of the eight-fold treasure letter was completely carried out in accordance with the records of the inscription. However, it is not recorded in the inscription of this strange big iron letter. To be on the safe side, one night the other day, under the X-ray machine of Fufeng County Hospital, only foreign bodies were found. However, due to the serious corrosion of the iron letter, experts repeatedly "consult" and it is difficult to determine. Open the thick lid. There is a wooden box in the iron letter, which has rotted and is tightly fixed in the letter by red and yellow mud. The box is pasted, so it can't be checked clearly. Open the wooden box, the box is full of colored silk, 9 layers, layers of different colors When the last layer of colored silk was uncovered, a gold-plated silver coffin was found. The silver coffin is shaped like a coffin, with a colorful corolla carved at the front end and two phoenix birds with long tails in the middle, which meet in Qi Fei, and the back end is decorated with moire patterns. In the middle of the small silver front baffle, there are two exquisite doors with a small gold lock hanging. There are three rows of nine small gold nails on the left and right doors, and a boy is engraved on each door. There are several colorful clouds on the boy's head. A pair of golden lions are carved on the silver back stand. On the left and right coffin boards of the silver coffin body, there is carved a King Kong Lux guarding the silver coffin, with a sword in his left hand and an axe in his right hand. The whole small silver coffin was placed on a carved golden coffin bed. There are five doors in front and back of the coffin bed (the doors are shaped like the moon), with carved curtains on the left and right. The second relic was placed in a gold-plated silver coffin, which was named "Super Two" by experts.
The third Buddhist event
2 1 In April, 0987, a rusty iron letter was found in a secret niche in the north wall of the back room of the underground palace. When it was opened, there was a silver letter with 45 statues on it. There are two huge crystal balls, two carved white jade rings, two carved gold rings, a string of pearls and some embroidered silk. The silver letters on the top of the 45 statues are cubes with the length, width and height of 17 cm. The cover and text of the letters are beautifully carved. The bottom of the letter is engraved with the words "as a treasure letter for the emperor to create the real body of Sakyamuni". 45 statues are decorated with sandalwood letters with silver letters at the top and silver horns. The top and body of the letters are covered with silver horns, and various flowers are carved by flat carving and painting. Tie a silver lock and a key. Inside the sandalwood letter in the corner of the silver bag is a crystal pendant set with precious stones. The cover is inlaid with yellow and sapphire, which is huge and dazzling.
Covered with avalokitesvara bodhisattva and vase flower arrangement, the four sides of the cover are engraved with manjusri bodhisattva, lotus, flowers and birds. Inside the crystal coffin is the jade coffin of the portal. This is another Buddha finger relic. According to the excavation sequence, experts named it "Super 3".
It was identified as the real phalanx relic of Sakyamuni. This relic is the unique and supreme relic in the world today.
The fourth Buddhist event
(Tang Fang Ying Gu)
At 23: 00 on May 10, the fourth Buddha finger relic was quickly found in Ashoka Tower. Ashoka Pagoda, the full name of Ashoka Pagoda with white marble relief painting, consists of four parts: pagoda, pagoda cover, pagoda body and pagoda base. The copper tower gate, gourd-shaped, is placed in the cover core. The tower cover is a nine-story pyramid, which gradually becomes larger from top to bottom, and each side is engraved with a circle of continuous wishful cloud patterns. The four corners of the tower are surrounded by columns. There is a door in the center of each side, and there are four rows of milk nails on the door, 24 in each row. There is a Si Qian with a lock on the door. There is a bodhisattva on each door leaf. The tower seat belongs to Sumitomo, and the edge of the tower seat is engraved with moire. There is a single-eave copper tower in the tower. The copper tower is die-cast and has a square plane, which is divided into three parts: tower foundation, tower body and tower gate. The tower foundation is sumeru, and there are three layers of gradually closed guardrails outside, and there are arc steps in the middle of each layer of guardrails. The tower is single-story, with one door on each side, one on the left and one on the right outside the front door, straight lattice windows on both sides of the door, and herringbone arches above the threshold. The top is a single-layer four-corner pointed shape, each side is cast with tile ridges and four corners are raised. The tower brake is towering, and the bottom of the brake is Sumitomo. The upper six phase wheels gradually decrease from bottom to top. There is a treasure cover, a round lamp, a rising moon and a ball above the phase wheel. The weather is solemn. There is a silver coffin in the tower. On the front panel of the coffin, there are two disciples sitting on Buddha, and on each side wall, there is a Garin Baga bird. There are two bases under the coffin. A circle of lotus petals is carved around the upper base, and a door is hollowed out around the lower base.
When the lid of the silver coffin was lifted, another Buddha finger relic appeared, so it was named "Super 4". The appearance of the above four relics are all in line with the records in ancient books such as Zhiwenbei, but the difference is that the third one (that is, one placed in the secret niche in the back room of the underground palace) is slightly yellow in color, with some granular bone secretions on its surface, while the other three are very similar to white jade. According to the inscription on the top of a heavy gilded 45 statue in the iron letter containing the third relic: "It is regarded as the real body of Sakyamuni Buddha, the emperor's treasure letter", it is determined that this one is the real body, and the other three belong to shadow bones. The name of "shadow bone" has been seen in Wen Zhi Bei, which is a special shadow bone made by Buddhism to protect the true body and provide for others. As an innuendo, as Zhao Puchu said, "The shadow bones are not different, so it is like reflecting the Three Rivers in January", which is similar to the spirit bones. The Buddhist bones unearthed in the underground palace of Famen Temple are the only Buddhist relics in the world, and Famen Temple will therefore become a holy place for Buddhist worship in the world.
The fifth and sixth Buddha statues
(Buddha's true bone relic, Buddha's true meat relic)
1988165438+1October14th, archaeologists excavated a large number of Buddhist treasures in the tiangong of Chaoyang North Tower. During the cleaning process, two Buddhist bone relics were found, one was ivory bone relic and the other was reddish brown meat relic. The news immediately caused a sensation in the Buddhist community. World-class monks, experts and scholars, thousands of miles away, gather in Chaoyang from all directions to catch a glimpse of the mysterious faces of rare treasures.
During the renovation of Chaoyang North Tower, a large number of cultural relics were unearthed, most of which were national first-class cultural relics and even world-class cultural relics.
It is found that the Temple of Heaven, the North Pagoda of the Buddha relic, is located in the middle of the twelve-story pagoda eaves, and consists of doorways, tunnels and palaces. The square stone letter placed in the palace consists of six stone tablets, namely, one stone tablet on each side and one stone tablet on each side. From the beginning of entering the palace to the present, the cover plate of the Tiangong has been split into two parts due to continuous earthquakes, lightning strikes, fires and even wars. Flammables such as wood, silk wool and paper inside and outside the palace were all reduced to ashes, and the rest were damaged to varying degrees.
After careful observation, archaeologists found that many Buddhist cultural relics were neatly placed in the stone letter of Tiangong, but the stone letter of Tiangong was only 1.2 square meters. These cultural relics are divided into two parts. On the front central axis, from front to back, there are gold-plated silver towers and scripture-storing buildings. On both sides of the second tower are placed silver bodhi trees, stone incense burners with handles, glass bottles, porcelain vases, porcelain plates with offerings, copper plates, silver plates, jewels and jade articles. Due to the narrow stone enclosure, many cultural relics are layered. There is only a seven pagodas in the back, decorated with seven treasures of Buddhism. In the center of the tower is a silver coffin with a wooden fetus, and there is a golden stupa in the coffin. This layout, in which the golden pagoda, the silver coffin and the seven pagodas relics are the main bodies, with the Tibetan Scripture Building and the gilded gold and silver pagoda as the front central axis, and the offerings placed on both sides, is carefully arranged and skillfully arranged in strict accordance with Buddhist rituals and burial relics customs.
During the cleaning process, archaeologists first cleaned seven pagodas. Around the tower, there is a small square tower with three eaves made of crystal. Due to the corrosion and fracture of silver wire, most crystal beads are scattered all over the floor. Then, silver bodhi trees, porcelain dishes, silver pots and other items were cleaned up one after another. Among them, the Sutra Pavilion, the hexagonal gold-plated silver tower and the first glass bottle of Persian Golden Bird were later recognized as national treasures.
Next, a wooden silver coffin placed in the center of the Temple of Heaven, facing north and south, attracted the attention of archaeologists. After the silver coffin was opened, a golden pagoda about ten centimeters high shone in front of archaeologists. Open the golden pagoda, inside which is an agate jar with a gold cover. Archaeologists judge from practice and experience that the agate jar must be full of relics. After careful cleaning, the result is just as people guessed. There are two relics in agate jar, one is ivory relic, the other is reddish brown relic. Two relics and five gold-plated beads were enshrined in agate jars.
Later, in the inscriptions found in the Temple of Heaven and the Beita underground palace, it was proved that these two relics were Sakyamuni's relics.
65438+ Because most of the characters are naked, they can be identified as "Jingta", "Two Relic Patterns" and "Golden Lotus". The inscription on the back reads: At noon on the eighth day of April in the twelfth year of Chongxi, the Great Khitan will hide. ...
2. Inscription bricks inscribed in the 13th year of Chongxi in Liao Dynasty were also found in the underground palace of Beita. It is engraved with the words "Bazhou city officials became attached to Qi Xin's younger brother to rebuild all the security wizards were buried by Emperor Wendi for the third time ..." In the Liao Dynasty, Chaoyang occupied the state, the first sentence in the inscription brick said that the monks and laymen rebuilt the North Tower for the third time; The second sentence is "the security master was ordered by Emperor Wen of Sui Dynasty to bury the relic".
3. The gold-plated silver tower in Tiangong has a bronze plate and an inscription on the silver axis, which reads: On April 8, the twelfth year of Chongxi, this silver tower was buried at the same time as the relic. ...
Rare Seven Pagodas in the World
In the Qibao Pagoda, there is a wooden embryo silver coffin. In the silver coffin, there is a square single-eaved golden stupa with a very beautiful agate jar covered with gold. This jar contains two relics and five gold-plated pearls. The collection method of this package is similar to the arrangement method of relics unearthed in the underground palace of Famen Temple. As can be seen from the cultural relics, the priceless treasure of the Seven Pagodas is not artificial except for the royal family, and the cultural relics collected here can't be the second person except the Buddha.
Although the storage method of the relics in the North Tower is basically the same as that in the Famen Temple underground palace (iron letter, gold letter, ebony letter, crystal coffin and jade coffin), the Qibao stupa in the North Tower is unparalleled in the world. There is a record in "No.11 of Seven Pagodas in Zhengbeijing": "Seven treasures and three pagodas are excellent in color. Five kinds of flowers fell on it ...; -Gold, silver, coloured glaze, crystal, coral, amber, canal and agate are all treasures. ..... when his Buddha was dying ... his relics were in the Seven Towers. " "Beijing Classic" says: "At that time, the Buddha had white hair on his forehead, shining on the eight thousand worlds in the East ... and he saw the buddhas nirvana and set up seven pagodas." There is another cloud: "there are seven towers in front of the second Buddha ... all kinds of treasures, so we should build them." ; There are 5000 pillars, tens of millions of shrines, countless banners and strict decorations, with trillions of treasure bells hanging on them. ..... Its flag is made of gold, silver, colored glass, dragonflies, agates, pearls, roses and seven treasures, reaching as high as four heavenly palaces ... "According to the Buddhist scriptures, this pagoda is a multi-pagoda, which contains many relics of the Buddha. It can be seen that the seven pagodas mentioned in Buddhist scriptures are solemn objects for placing Buddhist relics, but in fact we rarely see them. It can almost be said that the Qibao Pagoda in the North Tower is a world treasure, which is rare to see. If you can see this solemnity in Chaoyang, there must be special karma and blessing.
Many Buddhist treasures unearthed in Liao Dynasty are dedicated to Buddhist pagodas, but there are no other records of such solemn dedication, even the Zhaoxian Pagoda of Lingguang Temple in Beijing and the Five Pagodas donated by Mr. Wang Chongren to the country. Therefore, the North Pagoda is dedicated to Buddhist pagodas, and the Seven Pagodas are the first solemn offerings.