Thousands of years of historical civilization have left us countless rare treasures, some of which are spiritual, and some of which have been preserved in the form of cultural relics, telling us about the long and mysterious civilization past.
The ancestors of the land of Sichuan and Shu created a brilliant bronze civilization thousands of years ago, so there are the ruins of Sanxingdui that we see today, bronze sacred trees, golden masks, jade zhangs, bronze Dali people... The ancient Shu secret treasure has surprised the world, and the "Shangxin" activity has attracted the world's attention, but the civilization treasure of Sichuan is not limited to Sanxingdui
Du Fu Caotang, Dujiangyan, Wuhou Ancestral Hall, Leshan Giant Buddha, Jianmen Shu Dao, Sansu Ancestral Hall, Anyue Grottoes...
When it comes to grottoes, which are buddhist cultural carved architectural forms all over China, we often think of the three representatives of Luoyang Longmen Grottoes, Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, and Datong Yungang Grottoes. The grotto statues in Anyue County, Sichuan Province, inherit the dragon gate in art, and Anyue County is currently the county with the highest concentration of ancient Chinese Buddhist statue sites, with stone carvings famous for many, ancient, fine and beautiful, and more than 100,000 grotto statues.
Anyue County has the reputation of "the capital of Chinese Buddhist sculpture", according to research, at least from the early Tang Dynasty, the Buddhist grotto statue project here began, through the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, until the Republic of China period did not stop. Walking around every township, you can almost find the ruins of ancient grotto statues, which shows how prosperous the Buddhist culture has been here for thousands of years, and as many as 9 have been listed in the national key cultural relics protection units.
The exquisite stone carvings of the Buddha statues there are amazing, known as the "Venus of the Oriental Beauty God" of the Northern Song Dynasty Water Moon Guanyin is in Pilu Cave, Anyue County, according to the Ming Dynasty historical records, the history of stone carvings in Pilu Cave is from the five generations of Hou Shu (934 ~ 966 years), the Song Dynasty Buddhist art flourished in this place, leaving a large number of cliff stone carvings, but also left a mysterious treasure legend.
According to folklore, finding treasure sounds like a very mysterious thing, but it is not without precedent: from the Ming and Qing dynasties to modern times, it is rumored that Zhang Xianzhong, the "King of the Great West" in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, carried thousands of ships of gold and silver when he came out of the river, but most of them sank into the water due to the battle. A hundred years later, a large number of gold and silver objects and reward coins from Zhang Xianzhong's Great Western Kingdom were indeed found in the waters of Jiangkou Town, Meishan City, Sichuan Province.
The legend of "Eguchi Shenyin" has been circulating in folklore for hundreds of years, and archaeological work has proved its authenticity, and it can be seen that many treasure rumors are not empty. Similarly, there is a rumor about the treasure in Pilu Cave in Anyue County, and it is said that there are a number of mysterious treasures hidden in the local grottoes, and the key to finding the treasure is the "Heavenly Book Couplet" in front of the ancient temple of Pilu Cave.
We know that folk rumors about treasures are always true and false, and it is difficult to distinguish, but there is indeed a "Heavenly Book Couplet" here, the content of which is difficult for Chinese and foreign scholars, and no one has been able to crack it so far, and the difficulty is comparable to many oracle bones of the Shang Dynasty. This makes the treasure rumors even more mysterious, because people are curious about the unknown and want to explore and decipher.
There are actually 2 pairs of couplets, one of which is easy to understand: "Not inside, not outside, not in the middle; not immortal, not Buddha, not a thing", these two sentences contain philosophy, which is thought-provoking to read, but the other couplet is confusing, because its font does not see which known text it belongs to.
In the eyes of foreigners, Chinese characters are complex symbols of square blocks, which makes people dizzy, and we are familiar with Chinese characters when we see the words on this couplet, and we feel that it is similar to foreigners looking at Chinese characters, Chinese characters can at least be systematically learned, but for the text on the couplet, scholars from all sides have different opinions, some say that it is dragon and phoenix text and bird and beast text, but what its meaning is not clear.
In the 1980s, a Japanese scholar Hideyoshi Takashima brought this "Tianshu Couplet" rubbing back to Japan for research, but there was no actual progress for many years, and it was even more strange to embarrass so many experts and scholars in just 14 words. In terms of time, the remains of Buddhist culture such as the stone carvings around Pilu Cave are all after the Tang Dynasty, and it is reasonable to say that there is no need to write in such a strange script.
There is another folk saying: the treasure is actually divided into 2 batches, and the grotto has been found to be marked by human destruction, because the person who read the previous couplet took part of the treasure. In fact, the ancient cultural relics of the Anyue Grottoes, including Pilu Cave, are extremely valuable in themselves, so when the protection of cultural relics in the past was not enough to be paid enough attention, there were always people who deliberately stole and destroyed for their own selfish interests.
Mumen Temple originally had 11 statues of disciples standing, Huayan Cave dapan ruodong, and 20 southern Song Dynasty arhat heads were originally intact. The disappearance of these historical treasures in the last century is deplorable.
Nowadays, we have fully realized the importance of protecting cultural heritage, and the methods and levels of protection have also made great progress and improvement. In fact, regardless of whether this treasure rumor is true or not, for five thousand years of Chinese civilization, the truly priceless treasure is these historical legacies themselves.
No matter how difficult it is to replicate the treasure, it has witnessed the endless inheritance of civilization, and perhaps in the future, as we learn more about ancient civilizations, this day's book couplet will no longer be a difficult mystery.