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| The White Horse Temple - The First Buddhist
Temple in China |
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The Baima Temple in Luoyang, Henan Province, was the first Buddhist
Temple in China. It is said that one night in the year A. D. 64, Emperor
Mingdi of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) dreamed of a golden man
12 feet high, and the light from the man's head illuminated the hall
where he stood.
In the morning, the emperor told his officials what he had seen,
and one of them, named Fu Yi, said the emperor had dreamed of the
Buddha, a god of the West. Then the emperor sent Cai Yin, Qin Jing,
and others to Tianzhu (now India) for Buddhist scriptures.
When Cai, Qin, and their group arrived in what is now Afghanistan,
they met Kasyapamatanga and Dharmaranya, two eminent Indian monks,
who were preaching Buddhism there. In A. D. 67, they loaded Buddhist
scriptures written in Sanskrit and a portrait on white felt of Sakyamuni,
the Buddha, onto a white horse and returned to Luoyang with the
two Indian monks. The emperor lodged the monks at the Honglu Temple,
which had a guesthouse for foreign emissaries. When living quarters
for the monks were built in the temple the following year, the temple
was renamed Baima (White Horse) Temple so people could remember
the white horse that carried back the Buddhist scriptures and the
portrait of Sakyamuni.
The Baima Temple has been through many changes. What we see today
is a rectangular courtyard
complex facing south, reconstructed during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644),
with an area of 40,000 square meters and a roofed entrance arch
with three doorways. The entrance is built of blue stones, including
several pieces from the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Arranged along a central axis that extends northward inside the
entrance are the Hall of the Heavenly King, the Mahavira Hall, the
Receiving and Directing to Paradise Hall, the Vairocana Pavilion,
and the majestic Hall of the Giant Buddha, with its upturned eaves
and painted brackets.
On the east side of the halls and the pavilion are the Guest Hall,
the Hall of Prayer, the Hall of
Abstinence, and the living chambers of the monks. On the west are
the Hall of the Founder of Buddhism, the Hall of Meditation, and
the Preaching Hall. There are two opposite courtyards, and the complex
as a whole is well proportioned. It has the flavor of traditional
Chinese architecture and shows a distinction between more important
and less important structures.
All the halls housing statues of Sakyamuni, Maitreya, Amitabha,
the Buddha of Medicine, and various
bodhisattvas are built on the central axis following the terrain,
and each hall stands higher than the one in front. The Vairocana
Pavilion on Qingliang Terrace stands especially prominent and magnificent.
The Qiyun Pagoda was built after the temple was renamed Baima Temple
and is known as the first
pagoda in China. Originally, it was a pavilion-like wooden structure
with paintings depicting Buddhist scriptures. It burned down toward
the end of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) and was rebuilt
in 1175 as a 13-story square brick structure with closely arranged
eaves. It is 25 meters in height and 7.8 meters on each side at
the bottom. The eaves are built with small, exquisite overlapping
bricks.
When one claps one's hands 20 meters away from the pagoda, the
echo reflected from the eaves sounds
like frogs croaking. |
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