Relics of the Buddha (Sarira) in China

This month, in celebration of the Buddha’s Birthday, there is a Grand Blessing Ceremony for Worshipping Buddha’s Parietal-bone Relic, on the 25 – 30 April in Hong Kong, which was also sponsored by the Chinese government (trying to promote the country as an important center of Buddhism - yes ironic, I know given that Communism describes religion as the opiate of the masses). It just so happened that I had been studying another relic of the Buddha - his finger bone - in the course "Buddhist Art of the Silk Road" at Hong Kong University and both cases have rather interesting stories behind them. I then decided to try and find out a bit more about which other Buddhist relics are still extant in Greater China. According to Tang Dynasty (618-907) Buddhist records, China had 19 pagodas of King Asoka holding Sakyamuni's relics. To date, it is believed seven of the pagodas have been found in different parts of the country. (I can only locate 6, if anyone knows of the other one please let me know).

It is said that 2,500 years ago, Sakyamuni's disciples recovered one parietal bone, four teeth, two collar bones and 84,000 particles of relics from the cremation ash of Sakyamuni. Asoka, an Indian emperor (273 BC - 232 BC),  collected all the parts of Buddha's sarira, divided them into 84,000 parts, and stored each one of them in a pagoda-shaped shrine. Then he sent the sacred relics to different parts of the world.

Pareital Bone

The parietal bone of Sakyamuni, had been stored in a miniature pagoda named the Pagoda of King Asoka unearthed two years ago in an underground shrine built in 1011 under the former Changgan Temple of Nanjing. The palace was found when archaeologists began excavating the ruins of the Grand Bao'en Temple of Nanjing built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD). The site in the capital of Jiangsu province is home to a number of temples, including the Changgan Temple of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) and the Dabaoen, or Grand Temple of Payment for Kindness of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). In July 2008, archaeologists found a stele in the palace, the inscription on it said the palace preserved a "Seven-Treasure Pagoda of King Asoka" containing gold and silver coffins with Sakyamuni's parietal bone and relics of other Buddhas inside. One month later, an iron case containing a pagoda was unearthed from the palace. In November 2008, archaeologists removed the pagoda from the case and found two mini-coffins.

The four-layer, 1.21-m-high and 0.42-m-wide pagoda is allegedly the largest of its kind unearthed in China. The pagoda unearthed in Nanjing is made of wood, covered with gilded silver and inlaid with "seven treasures," such as gold, silver, colored glaze, agate and amber. It conforms to historical records of the "Seven-Treasure Pagoda of King Asoka" buried under the Changgan Temple, the second temple housing Sakyamuni's sarira in China. The pareital bone relic is usually housed in the Qixia temple in Nanjing but has been transported to Hong Kong for the occasion.

Hair of the Buddha

The authorities encountered a similar situation in 2001 after the discovery on the ruins of Leifeng Tower in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province. Archaeologists decided not to try to open the welded coffin, believed to contain Buddha'a hair, out of religious considerations.

Tooth - Sarira Pagoda (Zhaoxian Pagoda) 

Another relic is housed in Divine Light Temple Sarira Pagoda at Badachu of Beijing, formally named the Pagoda of the Tooth Relic of Buddha, it is the only pagoda for the preservation of Buddhist relies built after 1949. Sponsored by Buddhist circles in China, the pagoda was constructed at the Lingguang Temple, second of the eight great sites in the Western Hills to enshrine a relic tooth of Sakyamuni preserved in China for more than fifteen hundred years.

According to a Buddhist sutra, after Sakyamuni's death two of his teeth were left in the world (in contradiction to above). One was taken to Sri Lanka, and the other was brought to China after passing through many hands. It was first taken to Xinjiang and later, during the fifth century, found in Nanjing. It was taken to Chang'an (today's Xi'an) during the Sui Dynasty and later to Yangjing (today's Beijing) during the Five Dynasties until it was finally enshrined in Zhaoxian Pagoda, specially built for its preservation in August 1071 during the Liao Dynasty.

The then Zhaoxian Pagoda, located at the southeast corner of the Lingguang Temple, was a multi-eaved, thirteen-storeyed, octagonal brick structure. Since it was decorated with Buddhist statues and pagoda designs, it was also called Thousand-Buddhist-Statues Pagoda. The Lingguang Temple, a scenic spot in Beijing for hundreds of years, was unfortunately burnt to the ground by the allied forces of the eight powers in 1900, and Zhaoxian Pagoda was also damaged by gunfire. Later, some monks found a relic tooth in a stone container in the ruins of the pagoda's base. On a wooden case (made of agalloch eaglewood) inside the stone container was written, “Holy relic tooth of Sakyamuni, April 23, seventh year (963) under the reign of Tianhui, inscribed by Shanxiang”. It was estimated that the characters were written during the Northern Han Dynasty, when the pagoda was first built.

In 1949, under the sponsorship of Buddhist circles of Beijing, preparations were begun to build a pagoda. Construction started in the summer of 1958 and was completed in the spring of 1964.

The new pagoda is 51 meters high, octagonal, and has 13 levels of eaves, similar to the original Zhaoxian Pagoda. Each side of its square platform is 2.7 meters high and 22 meters long. Like the multi-eaved pagodas of the Liao and Kin dynasties, the pagoda was built on a huge Sumeru pedestal with a prominent first storey topped by thirteen closely layered eaves. The internal structure of the pagoda has seven levels; the ground level has a secret room with stone tablets and Buddhist scriptures engraved on the four walls. Stone steps leading up to the main hall, where the relic tooth is kept, were built outside the room. The relic tooth is preserved in a small gold pagoda in the middle of the hall.

Finger Bone - Famen Temple

Famen Temple is a well known Buddhist temple located in is located in Fufeng County of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. According to tradition, the Temple was built in the Han Dynasty but this has been strongly disputed by archaeologists. Legend has it that the Indian King Asoka of India traveled throughout Asia, distributing Buddhist relics as atonement for his sins and the many people killed during his wars. In China, he built this Temple and left the fingers of Buddha to be enshrined here. Emperors in the Tang Dynasty revered this sacred relic and regularly walked through the streets with the fingers as a huge worshipping ceremony. The Tang Emperors offered exquisite gifts to the fingers in an attempt to better their predecessors’ offerings. This legend was dismissed until 1981 when heavy rains revealed the crypt, shrine and underground palace by accident.

From 5–12 May 1987, after the opening of an underground palace, four relics claimed to be directly related to Buddha were found. Two of these were made of white jade. The third relic was from a famous monk. These three are called "duplicate relics" (影骨). They were placed together with a "true relic" (灵骨) in order to protect them. The true relic is yellow-colored, with bone-like secretory granules. It was declared by experts to be a the finger bone of the Sakyamuni Buddha. Thereafter, Famen Temple became a Buddhist place of pilgrimage due to the discovery of what is claimed as a true relic of Buddha.

The finger bone was preserved in the last of eight boxes, each enclosing the others, each wrapped in thin silk. The outer box was in sandalwood and had rotted away, but the smaller boxes were in gold, some in silver, and one in jade, and were in a good state of preservation. Each box had a silver lock and was exquisitely carved.The true relic is exactly the same as the description by the famous Tang dynasty Buddhist monk DaoXuan and other Tang dynasty records.

Other Relics in Mainland China

Besides the finger bone in the Famen Temple and the tooth in Lingguang Temple, corn-shaped red Buddha body relics (crystallized remains) were discovered in the Leiyin Cave of the Beijing Yunju temple on Nov. 27, 1981. These were returned to the temple in 2009 by the Beijing National Palace Museum and are available for viewing to the public.

Another site is the Buddhist Relics Tower located in Futu Court in Fengsheng Temple. The legend holds that after the death of Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, his bone ash formed many shiny beads, which were called Buddhist relics (Shelizi) by his followers. Only one of the beads were buried under the tower, however, when the Qing Emperor Qianlong had the tower rebuilt, surprisingly to all, many Buddhist relics were found. How could one bead become millions of beads? As a result people started to call the tower Buddhist Relics Tower. Built in 589 to 604 BC. (Kaihuang years in Sui Dynasty) and rebuilt in Song Dynasty, the temple was unfortunately destroyed in the beginning years of Qing Dynasty. Shanxiu, a monk in Fengsheng Temple decided to repair this tower, so he began the fund-raising immediately. After many years, he finally obtained the money needed to accomplish the task in 1751 (the sixteenth year under Qing Emperor Qianlong’s reign). The tower measures 38 m in height with 8 angles and seven floors, and on each floor there are 4 doors and 8 windows. The delicate spiral stairway will lead you to the top of the tower where you can enjoy the most beautiful sight of the tower at dusk. to the east of the tower there is a court called Liushan Garden, in which two pavilions can provide you perfect places for a good rest, one is called Liushan Pavilion, the other is Banyun Pavilion.

Relics in Asia and Greater China

There are purportedly teeth of the Buddha in Taiwan and in Singapore, as well as Japan and Myanmar. With regard to the tooth in Kaoshiung, Taiwan, in 1998, the Fo Guang Shan monastery founder Hsing Yun held the Bodhgaya International Full Ordination in India. This drew the attention of Kunga Dorje Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama who had been protecting one of the last remaining tooth relics of Gautama Buddha since the destruction of Namgyal Monastery in Tibet during the Cultural Revolution. The relic itself had been authenticated by several Tibetan rinpoches who had advised Kunga Dorje Rinpoche to build a stupa, but he was unable to do so due to old age. They reached the consensus to donate the tooth relic to Hsing Yun, believing he had the means to build a stupa so the public could pay their respects and make offerings to the Buddha's tooth relic. The relic was officially escorted to Taiwan on April 8, 1998.

Further Reading 

For those who are interested in finding out more about Buddha's relics - there is a book called "Relics of the Buddha" by John S. Strong, published by Princeton University Press. For a sample chapter and more information please click the link here.