At the 2021 Spring Festival Gala, there was a special program, and on the huge stage, a dignified stone Buddha head was quietly displayed - the Tianlong Mountain Buddha Head. The quiet look and the peaceful smile seem to make people feel the breath of the Buddha that spans thousands of years, but behind the peaceful Buddha's head is a history full of blood and tears, bitterness and hatred. Let's take a look at this unknown history!
1. The Return of the Soul to another Land: The Theft of the Buddha's Head
In the 1920s, the warlords in the country were divided, the society was in turmoil, and the people were not happy. The chaotic situation has given foreign cultural relics dealers an opportunity to take advantage of, and this period has become a peak period for mainland cultural logistics to overseas, and a large number of precious cultural relics have been smuggled overseas by cultural relics dealers in various forms, and the Buddha Head of Tianlong Mountain is one of them.
Tianlong Mountain, formerly known as Fangshan, is located in Taiyuan City, Shanxi, and is named after the Tianlong Temple built on it. Tianlong Mountain is towering from ancient mountains, deep ditches and valleys, full of vitality in spring, and solemn and magnificent in winter, attracting countless literati and inkers to ascend to the heights. In addition, Tianlong Mountain was also favored by the rulers, and Gao Huan had built a summer palace here. Wang Tingjun has a poetry cloud: "The cold wind is straight up three thousand feet, and the humane Gao Huan summer palace." ”
The Tianlongshan Grottoes were first carved in the Eastern Wei Dynasty, and since then northern Qi, Sui, and Tang have successively succeeded in their occupations. The Tianlongshan Grottoes are built on the mountain, and the entire grotto is integrated with the mountain. The Tibetan Buddha is located in the mountains, so that the Buddha protects the people, which reflects the simple values of ancient people living in harmony with nature. By the Tang Dynasty, the Tianlongshan Grottoes had reached its peak in excavation, with about 25 large and small grottoes.
Exterior view of Tianlongshan Grottoes
The Buddha statues in the Tianlongshan Grottoes have a variety of postures, or sit cross-legged, or put their hands on their knees, or sit cross-legged with one leg hanging on the ground, of course, there are also Buddha statues that stand quietly and fluttering. However, no matter what kind of posture the Buddha statue, it is plump, the lines are skillful, and it has distinct characteristics of the times, so it is known as the "Tianlongshan style" and is one of the several peaks of ancient grotto art on the mainland.
Tianlongshan Grottoes excavated over a period of more than two hundred years, with both foreign style and Central Plains native style, is a model of the gradual sinicization of foreign styles, and inherits the Wei and Jin dynasties, and the lower Qisheng Tang, with high artistic value and scientific research value. From the Eastern Wei Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, the Tianlongshan Grottoes have stood for thousands of years, carrying through the vicissitudes of the sea and mulberry fields, and escaping the smoke of war, but after all, they have not escaped the evil hands of cultural relics dealers!
"In the eleventh year of Taisho, when I first saw the photo of Tianlong Mountain, I was deeply attracted by the grottoes and statues there, and now, after two years, I finally crossed thousands of miles to Tianlong Mountain." Writing this passage was written by a Japanese man named Shujiro Yamanaka, the world's largest Chinese antique dealer at the time, who made a fortune by stealing Chinese artifacts. In 1924, Yamanaka Came to Tenryusan to visit the grottoes, and it was from this time that he had the dirty idea of stealing the grottoes.
Shujiro Yamanaka and the Republic of China collector Guo Baochang
The Tianlongshan Grottoes are located in the middle of Tianlong Mountain, and if you want to transport the Buddha's head away, you must pass through the Shengshou Temple under the mountain, and the attitude of the monks in the temple is very critical. Tanjiro Yamanaka, who understands human nature well, was not overwhelmed, and he thought of a simple and effective way, that is, to throw money. In 1926, Yamanaka Came to Tenryuzan again, and he used two ox carts to pull a full treasure of gold and silver. When he placed these yellow and white objects in front of the monks of Shengshou Temple, these monks who were accompanied by the Green Lantern Ancient Buddha were moved without suspense. Although the Buddha is good, he can only solve the problem of future lives, and the suffering of this life cannot be solved by eating and praying to the Buddha alone. What's more, in a chaotic world, sometimes even clear soup and water cannot be guaranteed.
A group photo of Shujiro Yamanaka with the monks in the temple
In the precarious era, everyone is crushed by the wheel of history like a mustard, and we cannot demand that those who cannot even solve the problem of personal food and clothing can still have the concept of cultural relics protection. Yamanaka successfully hired a group of local people to smash a large number of Buddhist heads for him, and then transported them in ox carts and sold them overseas.
Steal the head of the cave Buddha
This robbery and sale caused permanent devastation to the Tianlongshan Grottoes, and it was also the largest catastrophe in the history of the Tianlongshan Grottoes. After the 1926 cave theft, the local government also took certain protective measures for the grotto, but its role was very limited. Now the Tianlongshan Grottoes are scarred, broken walls and ruins, and full of devastation. The leaderless Buddha has become a pain in the hearts of countless Chinese people.
The ruined Tianlongshan Grottoes
Yamanaka, a disgraceful cultural relics dealer, also wrote his experience of stealing the Tianlongshan Grottoes in the book "The Collection of Stone Buddhas of Tianlongshan Mountain": "I finally persuaded the monk Jingliang with the real money and silver in my hand, and he agreed to let me take away part of the head of the statue, which made me extremely excited, and whenever I took the craftsmen into a grotto and chiseled a Buddha's head, the joy was more than getting gold." As everyone knows, this passage written by him a hundred years ago out of excitement and great joy has become ironclad evidence that he stole cultural relics, and has been forever nailed to the column of shame in history.
2. A Hundred Years of Pursuit: The Return of the Buddha's Head
According to incomplete statistics, more than 240 statues were stolen at that time, of which 150 went into overseas museums and private hands, and the whereabouts of the rest are unknown. Some occasionally appear on the auction floor, which provides an opportunity for the mainland to recover the Buddha's head.
In September 2008, the Christie's Museum in New York auctioned a large number of cultural relics, and the Buddha head of the Tianlongshan Grotto was also auctioned. Through the efforts of mainland scholar Xie Bing and Shanxi patriotic entrepreneur Xu Peng, the Buddha head of the Tianlongshan Grottoes finally returned to China for more than a million dollars. Taking back what belongs to us is so expensive, it is difficult to bear, and it can only be borne silently.
Limited by the conditions of the times, people do not know much about the return of the Buddha's head in 2008, but the return of the Buddha's head in 2020 has touched the hearts of the people of the whole country, and even become a guest at the 2021 Spring Festival Gala.
On September 14, 2020, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage discovered a "Tang Tianlongshan Stone Carved Buddha Head" that was about to be auctioned in Tokyo. After determining that this Buddha head was also the lost Buddha head of Tianlong Mountain that year, the State Administration of Cultural Relics quickly activated the cultural relics recovery mechanism and required the auctioneer to immediately terminate the auction of the Buddha head.
Fortunately, the Japanese auctioneers were very cooperative with the work of the Mainland Cultural Relics Bureau, and complied with the requirements of the Mainland Cultural Relics Bureau, stopped the auction of Buddha heads, and terminated the relevant publicity. With the assistance of Zhang Rong, chairman of the Japanese auction house, the Mainland Cultural Relics Bureau negotiated with the cultural relics holders, who finally agreed to donate the Buddha's head unconditionally to the Chinese government.
In November of the same year, the Mainland's State Administration of Cultural Heritage held a handover ceremony in Japan to officially welcome the Buddha's head back to China, which happened to be the 100th cultural relic recovered by the mainland in 2020. The return of the Buddha's head is of great significance, so there is the opening scene, under the quiet smile of the Buddha, the Chinese nation has entered a new year.
In the darkness, there seems to be Providence. The head of the Buddha wandered overseas in the chaotic world and returned to the motherland in the prosperous world. Behind the chaos and prosperity is the road to the rejuvenation of the motherland for a hundred years.
On July 24, 2021, the return ceremony of the Buddha's head in the Tianlongshan Grottoes was held in Taiyuan, Shanxi, and after nearly a hundred years, the Buddha's head finally returned to his hometown after a long absence. Today's Buddha's head is placed in cave No. 8 of the Tianlongshan Grottoes, through the glass, you can still feel the charm of the Buddha's head, and the quiet smile finally makes people feel that it is suitable, so that some people call it "the most beautiful smile".
Return to the buddha's head of the grotto
Wen Shijun said:
The chaotic era at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic of China caused a large number of precious cultural relics on the mainland to be lost overseas, including the familiar Twelve Copper Heads of the Yuanmingyuan, the cultural relics dealers were mad, the people were ignorant, and even the graves of their ancestors were sold to foreigners. Since the reform and opening up, with the enhancement of comprehensive national strength, the people's awareness of cultural relics protection has been greatly enhanced, and a large number of cultural relics lost overseas have also shown a trend of repatriation. The Fact that the Japanese Buddha head was able to return to the motherland so smoothly was also relied upon by a strong national strength, which was also a significant sign of the elevation of international status. The lessons of history are self-evident. The country and the people have never forgotten those pearls left overseas, and retrieving these overseas pearls is not only the best remembrance of history, the best washing of past shame, but also the best comfort for national feelings.
bibliography
1. Wu Huimin: "Where Does the Soul of the Buddha Head Return?" ——Taiyuan Tianlongshan Grottoes Buddha's Head Chiseling and Loss History", Cultural Relics World, No. 3, 2013.
2. Liu Weidong, "Liu Dapeng's Participation in the Handling of the Robbery of the Buddha's Head in Tianlong Mountain", Regional Culture Research, No. 5, 2021.
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Jingsu)
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