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The Famen pagoda prior to excavation (left); Excavation
photograph of the first chamber of the Famen Monastery crypt
(right). Lintong, Shaanxi Province.
The discovery of the reliquary deposit beneath the ruins
of a brick pagoda at Fufeng is a rare instance of a perfect
match between the archaeological data and historical events.
The Tang scholar Han Yu's diatribe of 819 protesting the emperor's
receiving the relics of the Buddha in his own palace and imploring
His Majesty to cast out such filthy remains so that the people
might never again be misled by them, is one of the great pieces
of Chinese prose writing (see deBary). It was also an important
milestone in the events leading to the great Buddhist persecutions
Of 842 - 845 CE, in which thousands of Buddhist monasteries
were razed and hundreds of thousands of monks and nuns forced
to return to lay life. The relics of which Han Yu complained
came from the Chongzhensi, renamed the Famensi, or Monastery
of the Gate of the Law, in 1003 under the Song dynasty (960
- 1279 CE). Founded in 555 under the Western Wei dynasty (535
- 557 C E), the Famen Monastery rose to extraordinary prominence
under the Tang dynasty (61S - 907 CE); it was closely associated
with no fewer than seven Tang emperors, including the notorious
Empress Wu Zetian (r. 684 - 705).
In August 1981, after a period of heavy rainfall, the octagonal,
brick pagoda of thirteen stories, which had endured for 372
years since its construction in 1609, collapsed in ruins.
After the remains had been made safe, the provincial government
decided to build a replacement, and an archaeological team
was constituted to proceed with an excavation prior to rebuilding.
Clearing of the foundations revealed not only the circular
trench in which the brick pagoda had stood but also the larger,
square foundations of an earlier wooden pagoda and steps leading
down to a level corridor and three successive stone chambers,
the innermost of which lay beneath the core of the foundations
of both pagodas.
As the focus of worship in early Buddhist monasteries, every
pagoda had its "foundation deposit," sealed within
a stone casket or small chamber in the foundations, where
it usually lay undisturbed until it became necessary to rebuild
the pagoda after its destruction by fire or lightning, the
ravages of war or religious persecution. Under such circumstances,
the contents could be recovered and incorporated in a new
deposit beneath the restored or rebuilt pagoda. In this deposit,
the relic, described by Han Yu as the Buddha's "decayed
and rotten bones," was supposed to be a fingerbone. It
is a hollow cylinder as thick as a finger and about an inch
and a half long, with the seven principal stars of the Great
Bear, or Big Dipper, engraved inside it. Three facsimiles
were also discovered in the crypt.
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