In 2001, during the first rule of Afghanistan by the Islamic Student Army, the Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddha, the symbol of Buddhism. Historically, Afghanistan was a Buddhist region, and during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the monk Fa Xian and the Tang dynasty monk Xuanzang went to India, the base camp of Buddhism, to learn the scriptures, all passed through Afghanistan, and visited the Bamiyan Buddha.
This article will talk about the Bamiyan Buddha, as well as the story of Dharma And Xuanzang.
From the beginning, let's start with the history of India, the stronghold of Buddhism.
The earliest city-states in India were the Harapa Cities, 2600 BC to 1400 BC. Corresponding to China: The Yellow Emperor's League, 2700 BC to 2070 BC; the Xia League, 2070 BC to 1600 BC; the Shang Kingdom, 1600 BC to 1046 BC.
The first Shang and Shang kingdoms, India is the city of Halapá
During the Vedic period, from 1400 BC to 600 BC, the Aryans invaded and settled in India, established a caste system, and successively founded Vedic and Brahmanism.
During the Western Zhou Dynasty, India was a Vedic tribe
During the Period of the Indian Kingdoms, 600 BC to 322 BC; West Asia was the Assyrian Empire; And East Asia was the Pre-Spring and Autumn Period.
In the early Spring and Autumn Period of the Nations, India was the period of the Nations,
During the Indian kingdoms, in the fifth century BC, Shakyamuni, the Shakyamuni prince of the Kapilava kingdom, founded Buddhism and opposed Brahmanism; West Asia and North Africa were the three empires of Medes, Neo-Babylon and Egypt; East Asia was the early Spring and Autumn Period.
Spring and Autumn Period
During the period of the Indian nations; West Asia was the Persian Empire; East Asia was the late Spring and Autumn Period of the Kingdoms.
In the late Spring and Autumn Period of the Nations, India was the period of the Nations
In the fourth century BC, the great power of India was the Dassa dynasty; The Empire of Alexandria was in West Asia; and the Warring States period in East Asia.
During the Warring States period, India's great power was the Dwarta Dynasty
India's first great empire, the Peacock Empire; China was the first great empire, the Qin Empire.
During the Qin Empire, India was the Peacock Empire
The Sundanese dynasty of India; China was the early western Han Dynasty.
In the early Western Han Dynasty, the great power of India was the Xunjia Dynasty
India continued to divide; China was the middle of the Western Han Empire.
Middle Western Han Dynasty
In the early period of the Guishuang Empire; China was the early period of the Eastern Han Empire, Buddhism was introduced to China through present-day Afghanistan and today's Shanbei and south, forming Han Buddhism, and in 68 years, the White Horse Temple was built in Luoyang, which was the first Buddhist temple in China.
Early Eastern Han Dynasty
Guishuang Empire; China is the late Eastern Han Empire. At that time, the world, from west to east: the Roman Empire, the Parthian Kingdom, the Kushan Empire, the Eastern Han Empire, and the four great powers stood side by side.
In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, India was the Kushan Empire
India was divided; China was during the Three Kingdoms period.
Three Kingdoms period
The Gupta dynasty of India, the decline of Brahmanism, the prosperity of Buddhism; China faced off for the Qin and Jin dynasties.
The Qin and Jin dynasties faced off, and India's great power was the Gupta Dynasty
Faxian, born in Pingyang County, Hedong, his original surname was Gong, and successively went through the rule of Later Zhao, Ran Wei, Former Yan, and Former Qin. He had four brothers, he was the fourth oldest, the first three were all young and died, and the family was afraid that he would also die, so when he was three years old, he let him shave his head and become a shami, and when he grew up, the family wanted him to go back, but he had become a buddhist with a firm belief, so at the age of twenty, he was fully ordained, and gradually grew into a senior monk in the temple in Chang'an City.
China believes in Confucianism and Taoism, and Buddhism is Huism, but when the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms were in power, the people in power were Hu people, so Buddhism began to flourish, and because of its profundity and profundity, it was free from suffering and happiness, so it gradually became popular in the Southern Dynasty. Buddhism is gradually sinicized.
During the reign of Later Qin Yao Xing, that is, in 399, the sixty-year-old monk Faxian, accompanied by Daozhen, Huijing, Huiying, and Huifeng, set out from the Later Qin capital Chang'an and traveled west to India, the base camp of Buddhism, to learn the scriptures.
In 400, they passed through Western Qin (present-day Lanzhou), established by the Xianbei people in Longxi, and Nanliang (the capital city of present-day Wuwei) founded by the Xianbei people in Hexi; then, to Zhangye under the rule of Northern Liang established by the Huns of The Xiongnu Lushuihu, they met Zhiyan, Baoyun, Huijian, Huida, Shengshao, and Sangjing, who joined together and formed a group of eleven people, and then continued west to Dunhuang under the rule of Xiliang established by the Han Chinese Li Huan. At that time, Hu Han advocated Buddhism, so The Fa Xian was welcomed all the way.
After that, Faxian and others left Yangguan and entered the Western Regions, where the Western Regions, from east to west, were the six kingdoms of Gaochang, Shanshan, Yanqi, Guizi, Khotan, and Shule, and all but Gaochang was Han, all of whom were Toholuo. Fa Xian and the others traveled seventeen days, walked fifteen hundred miles, and crossed the Bailongdui Desert with difficulty, successively to Shanshan, Yanqi, and Guizi.
In Guizi, some of them left, leaving only seven, and they received financial support from the remnants of Former Qin, and went south, after more than a month, crossing the Taklamakan Desert to Khotan on the south Tianshan Road.
The local water source is abundant, the commerce is developed, and there are many temples, so they stayed for three months to rest, and there are already many Buddhist scriptures in the local area, which have never been seen in the Buddhist temples in the Han District, and it is reasonable to say that by obtaining these scriptures, you can go back to the house, but the Fa Xian is not satisfied with the second-hand goods, and is bent on reaching India and obtaining the true scriptures.
Faxian and the others continued their advance, crossing the snow-capped Pamir Plateau and heading south, passing through present-day Afghanistan, to pay homage to the majestic Bamiyan Buddha.
On the way, Hui Da, Baoyun, and Monk Jing visited the Buddhist relics here, obtained some scriptures, and returned to China, where Hui Ying died of illness at the Buddha Bowl Temple. While crossing the snowy mountains in Afghanistan, Hui Jing died in the snowy mountains due to a blizzard.
Eventually, Dharma and Dao rectification reached Central India and obtained many Buddhist sutras such as the Mahabharata Sutra, the Mahabharata Sutra, the Mahabharata Dharma, the Sabha Dharma, the ZaabhiTta Mind, and the Mahabharata Abhidharma.
The two spent three years in Central India, learning Sanskrit. Dōshū later decided to remain in Central India, while Dharmakaya continued south to reach the kingdom of Tamari (around present-day Calcutta) to continue studying, copying, and painting.
In 410, Dharma Xian arrived in the Lion Kingdom (present-day Sri Lanka) and stayed here for two years to obtain Buddhist scriptures such as the Misha Serra, the Chang Ah Han Sutra, the Za Ah Han Sutra, and the Zao Tibetan Sutra. Place names in Sri Lanka under the name of Fa Xian are still in place.
After attending school in Anuradha, the capital of the Lion Kingdom, in August 411, he brought many original Buddhist texts with him, from the sea, by merchant ship to return to China, all the way also experienced hardships, encountered a storm on the way, was blown to Sumatra Island, and continued to take a merchant ship, marching towards Guangzhou, on the way encountered wind and waves, was blown north by the wind, and finally, in July 412, landed on the coast of Qingzhou (present-day Laoshan District, Qingdao City) on the eastern Peninsula of The Eastern Jin Dynasty.
At this point, Fa Xianxi went to learn the scriptures, and after fourteen years, he was already seventy-eight years old.
Li Ling, the governor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, heard the news that Faxian had returned from overseas and personally rushed to the dock to greet him.
After that, Faxian settled in Jiankang (present-day Nanjing), the capital of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and at the Dojo Monastery, translated 40 volumes of the Mahabharata Sutra, 1 volume of the Monks' Bhikkhu Ordination, 1 volume of the Monk's Bhikshuni Ordination, 6 volumes of the Great Mud Sutra, and 1 volume of the Miscellaneous Tibetan Sutras. In 414, he wrote about his travels to India, the Book of the Kingdom of Buddha, which two years later was added to the Fa Xian, which is an important source for today's study of the history, geography, customs, and Buddhism of the ancient Western Regions and South Asia.
Five years after his stay at the Dojo Temple, Faxian came to the temple in Jingzhou again, where he died at the age of eighty-five.
When Fa Xian returned, the great power of India was the Gupta Dynasty.
During the Liu Song Dynasty, the great power of India was the Gupta Dynasty
In 618, the Tang Empire was established, and in 622, the Arab Muhammad founded Islam.
During the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang, there was also a monk Xuanzang who traveled west to learn the scriptures. Xuanzang, whose real surname was Chen, was a native of Luoyang, 602 to 664, and lived for sixty-two years. He was thirteen years old and received full ordination at the age of twenty-one.
In 629, when the Loess Plateau was frosted, the imperial court allowed the people to "eat from east to west", and Xuanzang took the opportunity to travel west from Chang'an to India to learn the scriptures. Xuanzang left Dunhuang through Guzang, at that time, the western boundary of Tang was Yumen Pass and Yang Pass, and Tang was vigilant against Gaochang and Western Turks to the west, so the border pass was very strictly guarded, and Xuanzang had to smuggle out of the country, and then, through the western region under the rule of the Western Turk Khaganate, when passing through present-day Afghanistan, like Faxian, he also paid homage to the solemn and magnificent Bamiyan Buddha.
Xuanzang traveled to the king's house in the Magadha kingdom of Central India, entered the Nalanda Monastery, the center of Indian Buddhism at that time, studied under the precepts, focused on the study of the Yogi Earth, and also studied the Sanskrit book "The Theory of Declarations", and gradually became famous. Five years later, he traveled to the countries of eastern, southern, western and northern India. After returning to Nalanda Monastery, He asked him to give lectures on the Mahayana Treatise and the Theory of The Decision of Wisdom. The King of jieri held an unshaked assembly for Xuanzang at Qunu City, and Xuanzang preached Mahayana teachings and gained a greater reputation. In 645, the nineteenth year of Zhenguan, Xuanzang returned to Chang'an. The history books record that Xuanzang traveled west to seek the Dharma, traveled 17 years and traveled 50,000 miles, bringing back a total of 520 Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhist sutras and 657 parts. After Xuanzang returned to China, he was summoned by Emperor Taizong of Tang to live in the Chang'an Hongfu Temple, and later presided over the Great Ci'en Temple.
When Xuanzang returned, he still took the western region, but when he went, he took the north road, when he returned, he took the south road, and returned to Chang'an via Longxi.
Xuanzang took the route
For about twenty years after his return to China, Xuanzang was mainly engaged in the translation of the sutras, and successively translated a total of 75 Mahayana and Hinayana sutras and 1,335 volumes.
During the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Xuanzang wrote a book on the way to India, because Tang Gaozong sent Su Dingfang to attack the Western Turk Khaganate, and its territory was in the Tang Empire, so at this time, the Western Regions already belonged to the Tang Dynasty, and this book was named "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty", a total of twelve volumes.
Xuanzang had thousands of disciples. During the Tang Dynasty, Buddhism has completed Sinicization, the Ten Sects of Chinese Buddhism, Xuanzang created the Weizhi Sect, also known as the Fa Xiang Sect, which is characterized by being extremely theoretical and very brain-burning. Fa Xiangzong became popular during the Tang Dynasty, but after the Tang Dynasty, there were no more aristocrats in China, the Song were civilians on the throne, and the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties were in chaos, so the Fa Xiang Sect no longer had the conditions to continue, and the decline was an inevitable result, while the simple and easy Zen Buddhism and pure land sect were popular.
In the early Tang Dynasty, the great power of India was the Jiezhi Dynasty
In the seventh century, the Arab Empire expanded into Persia and Turkistan, causing the former Zoroastrian Persia, The Buddhist Turkestan, and present-day Afghanistan to convert to Islam.
In the ninth century, Hinduism arose, and Buddhism gradually declined in India, but continued to flourish in the countries of the peripheral region.
Let's talk about the Bamiyan Buddha.
Bamiyan Buddha: East Buddha, built in the first century, 37 meters high; West Buddha, built in the 5th century, 53 meters high.
After Xuanzang returned to China, he preached the Bamiyan Buddha, so during the reign of Tang Xuanzong, he began to build the Leshan Giant Buddha, which was seventy-one meters high, on a par with the Bamiyan Buddha.
During the Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan invaded the Arab Turkic Huarazm Empire in the west, in 1219, when attacking the city of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, Chagatai's eldest son, the seventeen-year-old teenage hero Motugan, took the lead, charged on horseback, was killed by an arrow, Genghis Khan was furious, after the city was destroyed, ordered the city to be slaughtered, and then, ordered a group of Mongol soldiers and their families to settle in Bamiyan City, guarding the undead of Motugan, who later became the Hazaras of present-day Afghanistan. The Hazaras originally practiced shamanism, then converted to Islam, and were not muslims at the beginning, so they were more religiously moderate, so they have always retained the Bamiyan Buddha. During its first rule of Afghanistan, the Taliban defeated the Hazaras, occupied Bamiyan province, and in 2001 blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas, despite dissuasion from around the world.
Bamiyan Buddha