Archive for August, 2009
Terracotta Army in Xian
The Terracotta Army Museum lie 1.5 km east to the Tomb of Qin First Emperor.
The Terracotta Army figures lie underground for more than 2000 years. In 1974, farmers digging a well about 1500 meters east of the tomb uncovered one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world. The firstly discovered site of Terracotta Army was named Vault One. In 1976, the other two vaults were uncovered 20-25 meter close to the Vault One, and were named Vault Two and Vault Three respectively. Excavation of the underground vaults of earth and timber revealed thousands of life – sized Terracotta Army in battle formation – a whole army which would accompany its emperor into immortality. The excavation was a real big shock to the whole world – the vaults are so big, the figures are so vivid and the number of the figure is so incredible!
Every figure differs from those around in facial features and expressions, clothing, hairstyle, gesture. The horsemen, the longbow bearers, the archers, the senior officers and generals were positioned in strict accordance with the ancient directives on the art of war. Many of the figures originally held real weapons of the time, such as bronze swords, longbows, arrowheads, spears, dagger-axes and other long-shaft weapons. Surface treatment of theweapons made them resistant to rust and corrosion so that after being buried for over 2000 years they were still sharp.
Jade Buddha Temple
Shanghai’s Yufo Chan Si, or Jade Buddha Temple (literally “Jade Buddha Chan Temple”, the “Chan” (aka Zen) being a reference to the Chan Buddhism sect of Mahayana Buddhism, the other Mahayana sect being Shin (”Pure Land”) Buddhism, not to be confused with Shinto, or the ancient religion of Japan that predates Buddhism’s spread to Japan, though the name itself is a composite term – Shin (”Way of the Gods”) and to (”to do”), i.e., “to follow the path of the gods” – borrowed from written Chinese), was built during the reign (CE 1875-1908) of Emperor Guang Xu of the Qing (CE 1644-1911) Dynasty. Jade Buddha Temple is currently located at 170 Anyuan Road in the Putuo District of the city, though the temple was originally constructed on a different site in northern Shanghai.
The original temple, whose two exquisite buddha figures in white jade – one a sitting Buddha at 1.95 meters and weighing 3 tonnes and the other a small, 96-centimeter-long reclining Buddha (which, in Buddhism, is a symbol of Buddha in death, just prior to his transcendence) – were donated to the temple by a Chinese devotee living in Burma (they were transported by sea to Shanghai). How the temple came into being, and how it got its first two Buddha figures, is an interesting story in itself…
A monk – an abbot, in fact – from Mount Putuo, situated on one of the islands of the Zhoushan Island group located about 100 nautical miles off the coastal waters of Hangzhou Bay, Zhejiang Province, and one of the Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism, decided to make a pilgrimmage to what is present-day Burma, via a route that would take him past another two of the Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism, Mount Wutai in present-day Shanxi Province and Mount Emei in present-day Sichuan Province (the fourth sacred Buddhist mountain is Mount Jiuhua in present-day Anhui Province), then across parts of present-day Tibet and into present-day Burma.