At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Buddhism was introduced into my country from the Western Regions. Many eminent monks traveled thousands of miles to Han Dynasty to teach the Buddha Sutra orally, which helped spread Buddhism in the Central Plains.
The concept of promoting Buddhism and inducing people to do good is also consistent with the goals of many rulers, and finally became more popular under the propaganda of successive emperors.
Many Buddha statues were built one after another, and people began to pray and fulfill their wishes in temples.
Among them, the one with the most buildings and the most well-known among the people, Guanyin Bodhisattva is undoubtedly one of them.
Amitabha is the leader of the Western Heaven, and Guanyin is the superior Bodhisattva under Amitabha. And the attendant Bodhisattva on the left side. He is one of the "Three Saints of the West" and the Bodhisattva with the highest level of practice. He is always beside the Buddha , assisting the Buddha in promoting Buddhism and educating all living beings.
In the Tang Dynasty to avoid taboos Tang Taizong Li Shimin's name, we could only remove the word "世" and call it "Guanyin" for short.
Guanyin statues in various places are also worshiped by people with incense. However, these Buddha statues have experienced time and have been seriously damaged in modern times.
During a routine restoration work in 2011, workers accidentally triggered the mechanism on the Guanyin statue.
With the startup of the agency, what kind of surprises will it bring us.
01 Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara Statue in Dazu Mountain, Chongqing
In 2008, the Wenchuan Earthquake that shocked the world occurred in our country.
As the most destructive earthquake with the widest spread since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chongqing, which is located 300 kilometers away from Wenchuan, was also affected.
The Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara at the Dazu Rock Carvings in Longgang Mountain and Baoding Mountain were also damaged in the earthquake.
The Guanyin Statue in Baoding Mountain is a Thousand-Armed Guanyin Buddha statue built in the Tang and Song Dynasties. It has a history of about 800 years.
It is not easy to restore such a long-standing Buddha statue. Moreover, it is also a Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara statue, which undoubtedly brings a huge workload to the restoration work.
"Avalokitesvara with Thousand Hands", also known as Avalokitesvara with Thousand Eyes and Thousand Arms, Avalokitesvara with Thousand Hands and Thousand Eyes, , etc.
According to records in Buddhist classics, Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara is the left assistant of Amitabha, and together with Amitabha and Mahasthamaprapta, they are collectively known as the "Three Saints of the West". It is one of the six Avalokitesvara in Buddhism.
There are many stories about the origin of Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara. Such an incident was recorded in the "Biography of Avalokitesvara" written by Zhao Mengfu 's wife Duan Sheng in the Yuan Dynasty.
It is said that in ancient times there was a country named Xinglin Kingdom, and the king of Xinglin Kingdom King Miaozhuang had three beautiful daughters.
The eldest daughter Miaojin, the second daughter Miaoyin and the youngest daughter Miaoshan.
The three princesses have been very smart since childhood. When they got a little older, Miaojin and Miaoyin accompanied their parents in the palace, but only the youngest daughter Miaoshan devoted herself to Buddha and became a nun. Green lanterns and ancient Buddhas accompany you.
The princess of a dignified country has become a nun. This news is really damaging to the royal family's face.
For this reason, King Miaozhuang persuaded his daughter to return to the palace more than once, but Miaoshan was very insistent and would never leave.
Seeing that the persuasion was fruitless, King Miaozhuang also became angry. Since you don't want to leave, then I will demolish the temple.
So King Miaozhuang immediately ordered people to drive away the monks and nuns in the temple and demolish the Buddha statue palace.
originally thought of forcing his daughter to return to the palace, but unexpectedly his actions offended the gods in heaven.
When he woke up, King Miaozhuang found that he had five hundred abscesses on his body, which could not be cured by all methods. Seeing that his condition was getting worse, King Miaozhuang was also very worried.
At this moment, someone gave King Miaozhuang a "recipe", which was to use the hands and eyes of his own flesh and blood as medicine, so that he could recover.
Emperors have been the most ruthless since ancient times. After learning the folk remedy, King Miaozhuang immediately went to beg the two princesses Miaojin and Miaoyin, but when he heard that they would offer their hands and eyes, the princesses did not agree.
Seeing that King Miaozhuang was about to become seriously ill, the third princess Miaoshan, who was living abroad, learned about this. The kind-hearted Miaoshan was grateful to her parents for their upbringing, so she dedicated her hands and eyes to her father to cure his illness. , as expected, King Miaozhuang will soon recover.
After this difficulty, King Miaozhuang also began to reflect. At the same time, Miaoshan's deeds also moved Sakyamuni.
In order to save more suffering sentient beings, Princess Miaoshan was given a thousand hands and a thousand eyes. From then on, Princess Miaoshan became the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva with a thousand hands and a thousand eyes.
Although there are not as many real Buddha statues as Thousand Arms and Thousand Eyes, they usually have ten hands, and slightly larger ones have thirty-two and forty-eight hands, symbolizing the thirty-two transformations of Guanyin and the forty-eight great wishes.
But even so, the details of the Guanyin statue are cumbersome enough, but the Thousand-Hand Guanyin Stone Carving in Dazu Mountain has a full 830 hands. This is such a huge workload.
The restoration of cultural relics is an extremely meticulous job, and it is also a job that cannot make mistakes.
The popular documentary " I Repaired Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City " which became popular a few years ago showed the superb skills and extraordinary patience of the restorers. Every extremely small repair must be scored 120 points. spirit, because once a mistake is made, the damage to the cultural relics will be irreversible.
The country also attaches great importance to the restoration of such a magnificent Guanyin statue.
For this reason, in 2008, the Chinese government established a multi-disciplinary team of experts specifically to restore the " Dazu Rock Carved Thousand-Hand Guanyin Statue" in Chongqing.
But just as the repair work was progressing in an orderly manner, an accident occurred that surprised everyone.
02 Unexpected surprise
After the restoration work began, the experts were mainly responsible for repairing the stone damaged in the earthquake to prevent weathering from eroding the interior of the stone statue. After repairing and shaping, they would repair the areas where the color had peeled off. Supplement and add gold foil to the Guanyin statue again.
Just when the staff started to repair the damage to the Guanyin statue according to normal procedures, they suddenly discovered something strange in the abdomen of the Guanyin statue. The originally flat surface of
became slightly dented under the touch of the staff. When the puzzled staff touched the dented area again, a stone brick suddenly sank in.
A hidden grid that is difficult to find appears in front of everyone.
Seeing this scene, the cultural relic restorers immediately put down their restoration work and immediately contacted the professional team.
When the experts arrived, they first used X-ray and other methods to survey the inside of the stone statue. Sure enough, there was a hollow position in the abdomen of the Guanyin statue, and there was something inside.
This discovery made the expert team very excited. After carefully taking out the contents of the Guanyin statue, the sudden surprise made everyone present extremely excited.
This Guanyin statue was built in the Song Dynasty. Little by little, experts cleared out several broken pieces of porcelain, some broken gold leaf, and a stone brick.
At first glance, there are no surprising antiquities, but careful researchers found that there were faint traces of writing on that inconspicuous stone brick.
In archaeological excavations, antiquities with texts are of great research value. The ancient fallen dynasties are so far away from us. Only through the written records at that time can we better understand the historical past.
After the experts cleaned the stone bricks, the words on the stone bricks were revealed.
This stone brick is about 30 centimeters long and 8 centimeters wide, with inscriptions on the front and back.
There are 71 inscriptions on the front and 23 on the back. They are incised and painted with cinnabar and on the surface. The color is bright red and the writing is clearly visible.
And through Shizhuan’s description, we also understand the origin of the whole thing.
It turns out that this magnificent Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara statue was not built by the Southern Song Dynasty government, but was built by local people voluntarily raising funds. This also reflects the piety of the believers at that time.
However, the inscription on this stone brick was not left over from the Southern Song Dynasty, but was left behind during the repairs by later generations. It clearly records the year and month and who repaired the giant Buddha.
It clearly states that craftsmen during the Qing Dynasty period restored the Guanyin statue, the number of craftsmen involved and the reasons for their participation, etc.
For example, during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the philanthropist Zhang Longfei of Suining County once funded the reconstruction of the Thousand-Hand Avalokitesvara statue.
It can be said to be a very rare historical material. It not only allows us to understand the people's future of worshiping Buddha in the Southern Song Dynasty, but also makes people marvel at the techniques and skills of the ancients. They are comparable to today's high-tech restoration. It has to be surprising. Lament the wisdom of the ancients.
In many adventure novels and film and television works, we often see people finding treasures buried here from Buddha statues.
Some are priceless Buddhist bead relics, and some are Buddhist antiquities with a long history, but none of them are priceless, but that is a fictional plot after all. There is indeed no rare treasure buried in this Chongqing Guanyin statue, but it brings The research value is much higher than the economic value.
Passed down from generation to generation, this 800-year-old stone statue underwent many repairs and finally regained its glory on June 13, 2015.
This restoration took eight years, and a total of about one ton of various restoration materials and 440,000 gold foils were invested. It can be said that the amount of work is huge.
Zhou Shuanglin of Peking University and other experts took a small piece of gold foil from the main Buddha's leg after the restoration for research. Finally, they found that the thin gold foil had been covered six times, but it was still as thin as a cicada. , the thickness can only be calculated in "microns".
After magnifying the gold foil sample 5000 times through scanning electron microscope , experts found micropores on the gold foil. This may be because they were punched through to make it very thin, which shows the exquisite skills of the ancients.
Even though so much manpower and material resources were spent, when the golden statue of Guanyin was rebuilt, the shock it brought to people was unparalleled.
03 The Importance of Protection
Although the Thousand-Armed Guanyin Statue in Dazu Mountain is extremely spectacular, there are still many such places of interest in our country.
For example, China's largest stone Buddha statue - Leshan Giant Buddha .
The Leshan Giant Buddha is also called Lingyun Giant Buddha because the entire Buddha statue is built on the mountain and is excavated to tower into the clouds. When viewed from the bottom of the mountain, the Leshan Giant Buddha seems to be above the clouds.
The construction of the Buddha statue started in the early Kaiyuan year of Tang Xuanzong. The repairs were suspended until the Tang DezongZhenyuan year when it was finally completed. It lasted for 90 years.
It is worth mentioning that, like the Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara statue in Dazu Mountain, this giant Buddha also contains the universe.
When the staff inspected the Buddha statue, they accidentally discovered a cave in the chest of the Buddha. After opening it, there were some scraps of copper, iron, bricks, tiles, etc., which were not of much value. The stone door that could be used to seal the cave turned out to be from the Song Dynasty. At that time, the remaining chronicle monument of Tianning Pavilion was rebuilt.
It turns out that after the construction of the Giant Buddha was completed in the Tang Dynasty, a wooden pavilion was built on top of the Giant Buddha in the Song Dynasty in order to protect it.
But as time goes by, the wooden attic has long since rotted away from the wind and rain, leaving only the giant Buddha carved from the mountain stone. The discovery of the stone tablet has also established the fact that the wooden attic once existed.
During the exploration process, the staff also discovered a huge cliff stele on the cliff facing the river on the right side of the Big Buddha Shrine Grotto, which is the stele "The Great Maitreya Stone Statue of Jiazhou Lingyun Temple".
Its appearance not only confirmed the true name of the stone carvings, but also became the first-hand document for studying world cultural heritage .
Leshan Stone carvings are certainly beautiful, but even the strongest and most beautiful carvings have become fragile after thousands of years.
As the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes built in the pre-Qin period, it is listed as a world cultural heritage and one of the four major grottoes in my country.
There are more than 500 caves in Dunhuang Grottoes, and 492 paintings and sculptures are preserved. The images painted are lifelike. Among them, the scene of Dunhuang Flying Sky is well-known to the world.
But even though the monument has been preserved for such a long time, it still cannot withstand the erosion of time.
Nowadays, some caves have been banned from being opened to the public, and the number of tourists entering the scenic spot is also strictly limited.
It turns out that the arrival of a large number of tourists in recent years has seriously damaged the murals of Mogao Grottoes . Because of the large number of people, the exhaled carbon dioxide is a torture to the already fragile murals. The longer it is open, the more damage it causes. Many, some have caused irreparable damage.
The management staff of the scenic spot had no choice but to permanently close some severely damaged caves.
The damage to every historic site is a pity for mankind, but even so, there are still many people with low quality who do not understand the principle of protecting cultural relics.
Ever since the 1986 version of Journey to the West was aired, in which Sun Wukong wrote a journey to this point on the finger of a Buddha bead, this "meme" became popular.
No matter where you travel, you can often see who visited this place engraved on the buildings of scenic spots.
Once upon a time, the China People's Broadcasting Station reported the incident of "Lu Peiguo visited here."
This "Lupeiguo" tourist carved his own "calligraphy treasure" on the stone tablet in Wuhou Temple Museum during the National Day holiday on October 1, 2012.
But the matter is not over yet. On April 30, 2015, this tourist once again left his name on the stone inscription " Shishi Biao " written by Yue Fei. And as early as 3 years ago, Yang Sheng'an's stone tablet also Also suffered a vicious attack.
For a time, there was a heated discussion on the Internet about who Lu Peiguo was. Many people demanded that this person must be caught and severely punished. However, since the incident occurred in a surveillance camera, who was this uncivilized tourist? No one can know.
originally thought that this person who left his name in multiple places had gone too far, but he didn't expect that something even more outrageous was to come.
On May 24, 2013, a netizen posted a Weibo post about the shameful scene he discovered while visiting the Luxor Temple in Egypt .
I saw that on the relief of the temple, someone inscribed "Ding Jinhao came here for a visit" in Chinese, which made the blogger feel ashamed.
The Luxor Temple was built in the 14th century BC. It is located on the banks of the Nile more than 670 kilometers south of Cairo, Egypt. This temple not only has a long history, but also has a majestic architecture. The local Egyptians have a saying "No one has arrived." Luxor , you have not been to Egypt. "
To engrave words on a temple that others value so much is not only disrespectful to other countries, but also a reflection of low quality. After
was posted on Weibo, it caused an uproar. Carving graffiti on domestic buildings was a personal loss of face. But once you go abroad, you represent all Chinese people.
Angry netizens quickly revealed the identity of Ding Jinhao, a student from a middle school in Nanjing.
On May 25, 2013, Ding Jinhao's parents also took the initiative to speak out, apologizing for their child's ignorant behavior and hoping to be forgiven by everyone.
Even if the Chinese people can forgive him, the damage he caused to the monuments can never be repaired.
As the only one of the four ancient civilizations that continues to this day, China has a long history and has left behind many precious cultural relics and treasures.
Therefore, we should protect this hard-won wealth instead of despising and damaging it.
I hope that ancient monuments such as the Dazu Mountain Stone Carvings can continue and allow our descendants to appreciate the various graces of the ancients.
