In 2008, a news shocked the Internet, and a Buddhist community "searched for more than 1,400 years of Indian historical Buddhist treasures" unearthed in Nanjing Dabao'en Temple — an incalculable value that experts on the Buddha's Peak Relic said were immeasurable.
As soon as this news came out, it quickly attracted the attention of many people in China, and rumors flew for a time, and the incident of the excavation of the Buddha's peak relics in Nanjing became the focus of people's attention at that time.
Since ancient times, the mainland has been a big country of Buddhism, and after Buddhism was introduced to the mainland, all the emperors of the mainland have reverently admired Buddhism, read scriptures, and worshiped Buddhist temples have become the common points of successive emperors.
It was because of the support of the administrators that Buddhism flourished on the mainland, and many magnificent temples were built to unify the emperors of the national ideology and build many magnificent temples in various places.
The rapid rise of Buddhism on the mainland has provided religious support for the rule of the country and the security of the country by various generations of emperors.
So why did the 1400-year-old Buddhist treasure of India appear at the Dabao'en Temple in Nanjing, China? How the Buddha's summit relics have influenced Buddhism.
In 1400 years, Indian treasures appeared in China
It was found that the "Buddha Peak Relic" is closely related to the economic development of the mainland, mainly from the Nanjing government, the restoration excavation and investigation of dabao'en Temple.
The mainland has been a cultural power since ancient times, due to the hundreds of emperors and officials of the past generations of faith in Buddhism, making Buddhism an inseparable part of the mainland culture, according to statistics, the existing Buddhist temples on the mainland have exceeded 33,000.
China has always attached great importance to cultural development, and in recent years, with the development of the mainland's economy getting better and better, the material life of the people has become more and more abundant.
The mainland has paid more attention to the development of ideology and culture, and from the beginning of the founding of New China, the mainland has begun to restore and excavate cultural relics and temples left over from ancient times.
Local governments have also actively cooperated with the central government's decision to respond to national policies and carry out a series of archaeological activities, and the Nanjing government has actively participated in them.
In 2007, the Nanjing government officially opened the Dabao'en Temple Ruins Park project, and in July 2008, the staff found a mysterious underground palace during the excavation, and immediately began excavation work.
After the excavation of the underground palace, the experts found an iron letter with a mysterious text engraved on it, and for a time, the hearts of the experts hung up, so they mobilized archaeologists to translate the text on it.
It is clearly recorded in the iron letter that this palace was built during the Northern Song Dynasty and is the underground palace of the Changgan Temple of the Northern Song Dynasty, which has a history of more than 1,000 years.
It is recorded that the iron letter contains Buddhist treasures such as the Ashoka Pagoda and the Buddha's Summit Relic, and in November 2008, mainland experts carefully opened the iron letter and took out the Seven Treasures Ashoka Pagoda from the iron letter.
The pagoda is sparkling with gold and studded with gemstones, and unfortunately, the gems set on the pagoda have fallen off and are difficult to repair because they have undergone a long burial.
Even after being buried for nearly a thousand years, the gem is still shining, and it is not difficult to see that this pagoda was once glorious.
The "Buddha's Peak Relic" comes from the underground palace of Ashoka's Pagoda, and once discovered, it became one of the three treasure relics in the world, the other two being the Buddha's tooth and the Buddha's finger.
There is a reason why the "Buddha's Peak Relic" unearthed at Dabao'en Temple in Nanjing is so precious, this relic is from the Buddhist ancestor Shakyamuni, which is the skull relic after his cremation.
Legend has it that Shakyamuni was a prince of the Shakya clan, and there are many theories about his birth, and this son was not ordinary when he was born.
When he was a teenager, he saw the suffering of the people of Li in the world, and he immediately felt sad, and since then he has retreated and pondered deeply to help the people of Li to liberate themselves from the sea of suffering.
Finally, at the age of 29, he realized the Tao, and then began to spread the truth he had painstakingly thought out to the public, and gradually had a group of devout believers.
After his nirvana, the disciples cremated his body and removed more than 84,000 real relics from his bones, including a skull, two phalanges, and four teeth.
One of the skulls is the "Shakyamuni Buddha's Top Relic" that we found in Nanjing.
The "Shakyamuni Buddha's Summit Relic" is the only remaining piece of Buddha's top bone in the world, which belongs to the supreme historical relics of Buddhism, and can reach a diameter of 10 centimeters.
The "Luoyang Jialan Record" records: four inches in circumference, yellow and white, with holes under it, by people's fingers, flashing like a bee
The "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty" records: the area is wide and more than inches, its color is yellow and white, the hair hole is clear, the bone is one foot and two inches, the hair hole is clear, and its color is yellow and white.
However, after the Tang Dynasty, there is no record of it.
The treasure appeared, and there was a lot of discussion
There have been many theories about how the "Shakyamuni Buddha's Top Relic", which has been lost for more than 1400 years, appeared on the mainland.
The most widely spread was that Wang Xuance sent an envoy to India, obtained it from India, and flowed into the mainland.
During Wang Xuance's three missions to India, he brought back countless Buddhist cultural relics to China, which made great contributions to the development and establishment of Buddhist culture on the mainland.
Some people say that the "Shakyamuni Buddha's relic" was snatched from India during the Great War of Xuance.
During his second mission to India, the new king of India seized power and usurped the throne, and the new king looked down on the Tang Dynasty and launched an attack on his troops in order to prevent Wang Xuance from entering the pass.
Since India showed a friendly and cordial attitude towards the mainland envoys during the previous mission to India (Tianzhu), Wang Xuance did not bring too many soldiers and horses on this mission, but only brought more than thirty cavalry.
He never expected to be attacked, the only thirty or so cavalry could not resist the army sent by the new king, and Wang Xuance, who was invincible, was imprisoned in heaven.
Xuan Ce later managed to escape from the Heavenly Prison and fled all the way to Tubo (present-day Tibet, China), but his character was resolute and he was unwilling to accept defeat.
So he decided to recruit soldiers and kill Tianzhu (India).
It turned out that Xuan Ce had already made preparations, and the purpose of fleeing to Tubo was to borrow troops from Tubo, so as to turn around and take revenge.
Wang Xuance borrowed 1,200 strong iron generals in Tubo, and later used Tubo connections to borrow more than 7,000 soldiers and horses in Nilojin (present-day Nepal).
Leading these nearly 10,000 elites back to the middle of Tianzhu, the great battle lasted for three days and three nights, annihilating more than 10,000 enemy people, beheading 3,000 of its soldiers, and capturing more than 12,000 prisoners.
The frightened new king's soul flew away, and he hurriedly offered a number of treasures, several war horses, and many elite weapons, and it was rumored that there were Buddha's top relics among them.
Subsequently, Xuan Ce brought these treasures back to China, and those treasures were scattered throughout the country, and it is not surprising that they now appear in Nanjing.
When we discovered the "Buddha's Peak Relic", the unique treasure had already been enshrined in the Ashoka Pagoda, and perhaps Wang Xuance did not know that the Buddha's Peak Relic was a cultural treasure of Buddhism.
The past and present lives of the Yuwang Pagoda
From the name, we can know that the Yuwang Pagoda was named after the Indian emperor "Ashoka", which shows the far-reaching influence of Indian Buddhism on the mainland at that time.
"Ashoka" is a figure that cannot be ignored in Indian history, and local scholars in India call Ashoka "the most outstanding emperor in Indian history".
Ashoka, also known as The Sanssouci King, was the son of King Pintosula and the third emperor of the Peacock Empire.
The first half of Ashoka's life is known as the "Black Ashoka" period, when he was fierce and violent, conquering the world with violence.
Ashoka lived in the Indian royal family, in order to exercise the fighting ability of the children of the family, the children of the royal family had to undergo harsh training from an early age, and developed Ashoka's cold-blooded and cruel character.
Ashoka was extremely physical, and soon defeated his brothers and sisters to inherit the imperial throne, and according to legend, he once fought the lion king alone with a wooden stick and killed him.
In the first half of Ashoka's reign, with the indomitable ferocious violence, Yiwu strove to unify the country and establish a relatively stable Peacock Dynasty.
According to historical records, in 261 BC, he captured 150,000 people and more than 100,000 people died in this struggle.
This proud emperor, after experiencing this massacre, actually rehabilitated and suddenly realized that violence was not the only way to solve the problem.
After regretting the tragedy he had committed, he stopped using force and ruled the country with Buddhism, hoping to achieve the goal of unifying the country through peaceful means.
Under his great impetus, Buddhism flourished in India at that time, and soon became the state religion, and India entered an era of unprecedented strength.
The reason why the incident of the excavation of the Buddha's peak relics in Nanjing has attracted people's attention is precisely because the mainland attaches more and more importance to culture and cultural relics
In his vigorous promotion of the rapid development of buddhism, temples have sprung up everywhere, and legend has it that he collected 84,000 relics after shakyamuni was cremated and built 84,000 Buddha stupas.
Ashoka once placed the relics left by Shakyamuni in eight pagodas and made them the national treasures of India.
However, after the changes of history, the Shakyamuni relics enshrined in them were also scattered everywhere, and finally the "Shakyamuni Buddha's Top Relics" were scattered in the Central Plains and found on the mainland.
The secret of Nanjing Dabao'en Temple and the Buddha's Peak Relic
In order to uncover the secret of why Nanjing Dabao'en Temple will preserve the Buddha's top relic, experts have further speculated.
Legend has it that the predecessor of Nanjing Dabao'en Temple was the Ashoka Pagoda built by Sun Quan, as the first pagoda built in Jiangnan, ashoka pagoda was once famous in the world, and many poets have written poems for it.
Nanjing Dabao'en Temple is the second temple established for Buddhism in China after the White Horse Temple.
After investigation, the Ashoka Pagoda was officially built between 194 and 195 (during the Eastern Han Dynasty), and unfortunately, this pagoda was destroyed by a fire in 1408, during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty on the mainland.
In 1421, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di summoned officials and decided to repair the pagoda, so Zhu Di restored it in the name of honoring taizu and empress ma.
But he was not willing to just carry out restoration work, so Zhu Di invested a lot of money and built a large number of buildings, and the nine-story glass pagoda in the temple was erected.
Since then, Dabao'en Temple has become a landmark Buddhist building on the mainland, and we don't know how the Buddha's roof relics entered Dabao'en Temple.
Perhaps when Wang Xuance brought it back to China, the treasure was scattered throughout the country, and at that time, a senior monk in the temple accidentally obtained it, and in order to prevent social unrest from causing damage to such a treasure, he built an iron letter to hide it under the underground palace.
It is precisely because of this that the fire during the Yongle years of the Ming Dynasty did not damage this unique treasure.
In 1854, the Temple was destroyed again, according to rumors, because the Taiping Army, in order to prevent the Qing army from occupying the Temple and robbing the property in the city, took the lead in the attack.
It was burned with gunpowder, then drilled into the ground to damage its foundation, causing a treasure temple to collapse, but some believe that Zeng Guofan ordered it to be blown up.
The fate of Dabao'en Temple is bumpy, but fortunately, in the mainland, more and more attention is paid to the protection of cultural relics, and in 2004, the Nanjing government began to prepare for restoration.
During the restoration process, the treasure that had disappeared for more than 1,400 years was discovered.
Enshrined in Qixia Temple
In 2008, the mainland decided to send the "Buddha's Peak Relic" to Qixia Temple for worship, and invited the president of the Buddhist Association of China to send it to the temple.
At nine o'clock in the morning, in the presence of 108 senior monks overseas, the president of the Buddhist Association of China, Master Chuanyin, invited the Buddha's top relics from a set of gold coffins and silver rafters.
Carefully invited him to the "Seven-Story Nan Wood Carved Golden Lotus Sumire Seat" that had been prepared.
In 2010, the mainland displayed this precious Buddhist relic to the world, and as soon as the news was announced, Buddhists from all over the world came to the scene and surrounded the scene.
They all had a feeling of admiration and wanted to see for themselves the true face of Shakyamuni Buddha's relic.
For Buddhist disciples, the discovery of the Buddhist treasure "Shakyamuni Buddha's Peak Relic" is of great significance, representing the beautiful expectations in their hearts for their religious beliefs.
This discovery also promoted the development of Buddhist culture on the mainland and in the world.
The impact of Buddhism on the history of the mainland can be described as enormous, and without the development of Buddhism in China, it is difficult to imagine where the history of the mainland would have gone.
Buddhism has officially developed on the mainland since emperor Han Mingdi's night dream of the golden man, and the history books record that emperor Han Mingdi dreamed of a strong figure and a golden man wearing sunlight on his head, and fell into his palace.
When he woke up, he felt very good and happy, so he summoned the minister to interpret his dreams, and the taishi officer replied:
"There was a Buddha born in the West, this Buddha is six feet tall, the whole body is golden, perhaps the golden man that His Majesty dreams of is the legendary Buddha."
Emperor Hanming had been thinking about this time, so he sent two ministers to the West to seek the Dharma, and soon after the two ministers returned a Buddha statue on a white horse.
For this Statue of the Buddha, the White Horse Temple was built, the White Horse Temple is the first Buddhist temple in the mainland, under the influence of the White Horse Temple preaching, temples throughout the mainland began to rise, Buddhism spread rapidly in China, which is the beginning of the official development of Buddhism in the mainland.
It is believed that under the continuous excavation and protection of cultural relics workers in the mainland and the world, more and more cultural treasures can be seen in the light of day and well protected.