The Dafo Temple or Great Buddha Temple () is a
Buddhist temple
A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in Buddhism represen ...
in
Zhangye
Zhangye (), formerly romanized as Changyeh or known as Kanchow, is a prefecture-level city in central Gansu Province in the People's Republic of China. It borders Inner Mongolia on the north and Qinghai on the south. Its central district is Ga ...
,
Gansu
Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province.
The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, notable for its gigantic
reclining Buddha
A reclining Buddha is an image that represents Buddha lying down and is a major iconographic theme in Buddhist art. It represents the historical Buddha during his last illness, about to enter the parinirvana. He is lying on his right side, his hea ...
statue made around 1100 during the
Western Xia
The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (), officially the Great Xia (), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as ''Mi-nyak''Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China tha ...
period, which is thirty-five metres long. After a restoration project in 2005–06, the Temple now attracts thousands of visitors. It has had several names over the centuries, including the "Kasyapa Buddha Temple" (), the "Bojue Temple" (), the "Hongren Temple" (), and the "Reclining Buddha Temple" (). The present name of "Dafo" means "Great Buddha".
History
The temple was built around the beginning of the 12th century, during the
Western Xia
The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (), officially the Great Xia (), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as ''Mi-nyak''Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China tha ...
(1038–1227) period. In 1028, the
Tibeto-Burman speaking Tangut people
The Tangut people ( Tangut: , ''mjɨ nja̱'' or , ''mji dzjwo''; ; ; mn, Тангуд) were a Tibeto-Burman tribal union that founded and inhabited the Western Xia dynasty. The group initially lived under Tuyuhun authority, but later submitted t ...
took over Zhangye (then known as Ganzhou) from the
Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom. A few years later they founded the Western Xia and controlled the entirety of the
Hexi Corridor
The Hexi Corridor (, Xiao'erjing: حْسِ ظِوْلاْ, IPA: ), also known as the Gansu Corridor, is an important historical region located in the modern western Gansu province of China. It refers to a narrow stretch of traversable and relativ ...
. To strengthen their hold over the area, the Xia built temples and ordered the translation of the Buddhist scriptures. They were especially strong during the reign of the
Emperor Chongzong of Western Xia
Emperor Chongzong of Western Xia (1084–1139), born Li Qianshun (), was the fourth emperor of the Western Xia dynasty of China, ruling from 1086 to 1139. His reign began at the age of three, when his father Li Bingchang died. He remained under ...
(1086–1139), and the Dafo Temple dates from this time.
[
The history of the temple relates that in 1098, a monk called Sineng Weimie had seen ]numinous
Numinous () is a term derived from the Latin ''numen'', meaning "arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring."Collins English Dictionary -7th ed. - 2005 The term was given its present sense by the German theologian and ph ...
lights and heard heavenly sounds coming from a nearby hill at the foot of a mountain. Investigating the area, Sineng unearthed a hoard which included a reclining Buddha statue and set out to build a great temple in honour of the image, which he believed had been revealed by divine favour.[Sonya S. Lee, ''Surviving Nirvana: Death of the Buddha in Chinese Visual Culture'' (Hong Kong University Press, 2010), p. 265] The nirvana image in the temple has a long history of patrons and visitors and has been protected for centuries by its Buddhist monks, but it has also suffered from decay and restoration. Protecting it was most difficult during the Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
.[
There is a story that ]Kublai Khan
Kublai ; Mongolian script: ; (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder of the Yuan dynasty of China and the fifth khagan-emperor of th ...
(1215–1294) was born in the temple, while his mother was living there, and another that Bing
Bing most often refers to:
* Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer
* Microsoft Bing, a web search engine
Bing may also refer to:
Food and drink
* Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread
* Bing (soft drink), a UK brand
* Bing cherry, a varie ...
, the last Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
(960–1279) emperor, was exiled to Zhangye and became a monk in the temple. However, Ruth W. Dunnell has reported that she has been unable to find evidence to support either of these claims. She notes that they "illustrate the accretion of legend around this particular Buddhist site".
The Hall of Scriptures has a double wall behind it and is forty metres long, twenty metres high. In 1996 the temple was added to the list of major national historical and cultural sites and the ''Beijing Review'' reported that 6,000 volumes of ancient Buddhist scriptures survived in the temple.[''Beijing Review'', Volume 39 (1996), p. 29]
In 2005, the temple was reinstated as a place of worship, and the next year it was re-opened after a major restoration which aimed to promote it as a tourist attraction. On 1 July 2006, dozens of Buddhist masters blessed a large crowd which attended, in the largest gathering seen at the temple for more than a hundred years.[
]
The statue and its hall
The temple's huge statue is made of clay on a wooden frame and depicts the Gautama Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...
's attainment of nirvana, with his ten disciples standing behind him. It is largely unaltered since the time of the Western Xia
The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (), officially the Great Xia (), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as ''Mi-nyak''Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China tha ...
(1038–1227). With a length of some , Ruth W. Dunnell has described it as "the largest reclining clay Buddha statue in China".
The hall which contains the Buddha is long and wide, with a height of . It has a Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
(1644–1911) mural and is one of the few wooden structures of its period which survive. The mural tells the story of Xuanzang
Xuanzang (, ; 602–664), born Chen Hui / Chen Yi (), also known as Hiuen Tsang, was a 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of ...
and his followers, showing Xuanzang riding on a horse and the monkey king Sun Wukong
The Monkey King, also known as Sun Wukong ( zh, t=孫悟空, s=孙悟空, first=t) in Mandarin Chinese, is a legendary mythical figure best known as one of the main characters in the 16th-century Chinese novel ''Journey to the West'' ( zh, ...
kneeling on the ground.[''Dust in the Wind: Retracing Dharma Master Xuanzang's Western Pilgrimage'' (Rhythms Monthly, 2006)]
p. 23
/ref>
See also
*Dafo Temple (Xinchang)
The Dafo Temple () is a famous Buddhist temple in Zhejiang and has a long history of more than 1600 years. This Temple is the symbol of the Xinchang County and it attracts tens of thousands of visitors every year. Recently, the temple and its surr ...
*Leshan Giant Buddha
The Leshan Giant Buddha () is a tall stone statue, built between 713 and 803 (during the Tang dynasty). It is carved out of a cliff face of Cretaceous red bed sandstones that lies at the confluence of the Min River and Dadu River in the southe ...
References
Bibliography
*
External links
*
Dafo Monastery in Zhangye, Architectura Sinica Site Archive
{{Buddhist temples in China
Buddhist temples in Zhangye
12th-century establishments in China
Religious organizations established in the 12th century
Western Xia architecture
Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Gansu