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Bones of the Buddha
Some Reflections on a Visit to Ayuwang Temple in Ningbo, Zhejiang
by James Baquet
Relics are good for business, especially if your business model depends on attracting hordes of pious pilgrims with money to burn.
This was well known in Christendom in the Middle Ages. Chaucer's famous Canterbury Tales tells the story of pilgrims heading for a cathedral that contained the earthly remains of Thomas Becket, a bishop murdered in that cathedral. Those remains are now in Rome, where, I have it on good authority, one can also see the skull-bone of a martyred Roman soldier, Saint Teresa's left foot, the heads of Saints Peter and Paul, and the very crib in which the baby Jesus slept.
Doubt it, ye of little faith? Bates College Professor of Religion and unabashed relic groupie John S. Strong writes that at Rome's Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem (that's the name, but it's in Rome) he was able to "gaze to my heart’s content upon three slivers of the wood of the cross on which Jesus had been crucified, upon two thorns from his crown of thorns, upon one of the spikes that had nailed him to the cross, upon the 'titulus'--the inscription plate that Pontius Pilate had set up above his head… There too was the finger bone of Doubting Thomas, the very finger that that apostle had stuck into the wounds in Jesus’ flesh."
Big business indeed.
Well, if all the pieces of the "one true cross" were assembled, one might be able to reconstruct the Golden Gate Bridge.
Now, the state of Buddhism in east Asia today is much like that of the medieval Church. Large monastic communities gather around statuary in soaring halls filled with the smoke of incense and lit by flickering candlelight. And on festival days these halls are packed with believers more devout than informed.
And somewhere on the property, there's bound to be a relic.
Buddhist relics are the result of cremation. It's rare to have, say, a full arm, like that of Saint John the Baptist in Istanbul, or a complete skull, like that of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite on the holy Mount Athos in Greece.
Rather, Buddhist relics are "sarira." Although the word can sometimes refer to body parts, and even whole corpses like the mummy of Zen's Sixth Patriarch at Nanhua Temple in Shaoguan, it is most technically used for the bead-like remains that can be sifted out of the ashes after the cremation of a Buddhist saint. Sarira don't result from burning common folk; they are, as it were, the crystallization of a master's wisdom, and therefore worthy of veneration.
Sarira come in three colors: the most common are the white "bone relics"; the least common, the black "hair relics"; and in the middle, the red-colored gruesomely-named "meat-relics."
White, black, and red: These are not just the colors in the old joke about newspapers ("Black and white and red [read] all over"); they are also the colors of the three gunas or "qualities" in Indian thought: sattva, the active, is white; tamas, the passive, is black; and rajas, the passionate, is red.
Whole pieces are found from time to time, however. In 1987, after the collapse of a pagoda, a finger bone of the Buddha was found at Famen temple near Xi'an. Its popularity cannot be over-estimated: 100,000 came out to see it when it toured Taiwan in 2002, and six times that in Hong Kong in 2004. Never have so many been so happy to be "given the finger."
All of this was running through my head as I prepared to set out for Ayuwang Temple in Ningbo, Zhejiang. "Ayuwang" is Chinese for "King Ashoka," the king who united most of India in the 3rd Century BCE.
This is the only temple in China named after him, and for good reason: This temple claimed to have one of the Ashokan relics, but it was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.
The story, in brief, is this: At the death of the Buddha, eight kings were prepared to duke it out in the "War of the Relics" to gain control of his sarira. Drona, the disciple in charge of the remains, wisely decided to divide them up eight ways. Eight stupas (burial mounds) were built, and the matter was settled.
A few centuries later, Ashoka came along. Initially a brutal conqueror, he converted to Buddhism and, in atonement for atrocities committed, set out on an ambitious program to identify the sites of the Buddha's life (many still marked with "Ashoka pillars"). He also gathered the Buddha's sarira together again, and then redistributed them, dividing them into 84,000 parts, and building 84,000 stupas, and…
Hold on: 84,000?
Impossible, to be sure. Let's say that "84,000" signifies "a very large number," like when we say, "I have a million things to do today."
The number has several connections that may explain its attachment to the Buddha's relics. For one, it's said to be the number of verses in the Buddha's teachings. So by spreading the Buddha's remains, Ashoka was mirroring the spread of the dharma, the Buddha's teachings.
Secondly, some traditions said the world was made up of 84,000 constituent parts (primitive "atoms"). So in spreading the remains, Ashoka was creating a sacralized world parallel to this one.
Finally, another tradition said that the day the Prince Siddhartha--who would become the Buddha--was born, 84,000 boys were born in the world. So Ashoka may have been "rounding out" that event by spreading 84,000 tokens of the Buddha's death.
(Ashoka's capital, by the way, was at Pataliputra, modern Patna, from which the British later administered the distribution another substance to east Asia: opium.)
A redistribution of relics "all over the face of Jambudvipa" (the known world) was also undoubtedly a means of consolidating Ashoka's power. Such redistributions have been carried out by Chinese emperors numerous times since, and relic "gifting" is still done for political reasons.
The stupa of Ashoka's day has evolved into the pagoda of east Asia; any time one sees a pagoda, it represents, if it does not actually contain, the body of the Buddha or another Buddhist "saint." When I was a pilgrim in Japan, I saw dozens of pagodas, but never heard that any of them contained bits of the Buddha, though one was said to contain remains of Xuanzang, the Tang Dynasty monk who went to India to bring back scriptures; the Japanese had looted this from Nanjing in 1942 and brought it back for enshrinement. Interestingly, Xuanzang himself is reported to have had 150 "meat relics" of the Buddha among the many souvenirs he brought back from India.
I have since read that there is one certified Buddha sarira in Japan. Discovered in India in 1897, they were presented by the British to the King of "Siam," who in 1900 gave a portion to the Japanese emperor. He had a new temple built in Nagoya to house them, and named it Nissenji ("Japan-Siam Temple"); it has since been changed to "Nittaiji" to reflect the change of Siam's name to Thailand. These are considered to be the only Buddha relics in Japan.
China, on the other hand, is rife with such relics. When my driver, Mr. Fan, picked me up at the airport in Ningbo, I told him about my impending trip to Ayuwang Temple, and my disappointment that the relic had been destroyed. "No, no," he protested. "My friend was there yesterday, and he saw it!"
by James Baquet
Relics are good for business, especially if your business model depends on attracting hordes of pious pilgrims with money to burn.
This was well known in Christendom in the Middle Ages. Chaucer's famous Canterbury Tales tells the story of pilgrims heading for a cathedral that contained the earthly remains of Thomas Becket, a bishop murdered in that cathedral. Those remains are now in Rome, where, I have it on good authority, one can also see the skull-bone of a martyred Roman soldier, Saint Teresa's left foot, the heads of Saints Peter and Paul, and the very crib in which the baby Jesus slept.
Doubt it, ye of little faith? Bates College Professor of Religion and unabashed relic groupie John S. Strong writes that at Rome's Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem (that's the name, but it's in Rome) he was able to "gaze to my heart’s content upon three slivers of the wood of the cross on which Jesus had been crucified, upon two thorns from his crown of thorns, upon one of the spikes that had nailed him to the cross, upon the 'titulus'--the inscription plate that Pontius Pilate had set up above his head… There too was the finger bone of Doubting Thomas, the very finger that that apostle had stuck into the wounds in Jesus’ flesh."
Big business indeed.
Well, if all the pieces of the "one true cross" were assembled, one might be able to reconstruct the Golden Gate Bridge.
Now, the state of Buddhism in east Asia today is much like that of the medieval Church. Large monastic communities gather around statuary in soaring halls filled with the smoke of incense and lit by flickering candlelight. And on festival days these halls are packed with believers more devout than informed.
And somewhere on the property, there's bound to be a relic.
Buddhist relics are the result of cremation. It's rare to have, say, a full arm, like that of Saint John the Baptist in Istanbul, or a complete skull, like that of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite on the holy Mount Athos in Greece.
Rather, Buddhist relics are "sarira." Although the word can sometimes refer to body parts, and even whole corpses like the mummy of Zen's Sixth Patriarch at Nanhua Temple in Shaoguan, it is most technically used for the bead-like remains that can be sifted out of the ashes after the cremation of a Buddhist saint. Sarira don't result from burning common folk; they are, as it were, the crystallization of a master's wisdom, and therefore worthy of veneration.
Sarira come in three colors: the most common are the white "bone relics"; the least common, the black "hair relics"; and in the middle, the red-colored gruesomely-named "meat-relics."
White, black, and red: These are not just the colors in the old joke about newspapers ("Black and white and red [read] all over"); they are also the colors of the three gunas or "qualities" in Indian thought: sattva, the active, is white; tamas, the passive, is black; and rajas, the passionate, is red.
Whole pieces are found from time to time, however. In 1987, after the collapse of a pagoda, a finger bone of the Buddha was found at Famen temple near Xi'an. Its popularity cannot be over-estimated: 100,000 came out to see it when it toured Taiwan in 2002, and six times that in Hong Kong in 2004. Never have so many been so happy to be "given the finger."
All of this was running through my head as I prepared to set out for Ayuwang Temple in Ningbo, Zhejiang. "Ayuwang" is Chinese for "King Ashoka," the king who united most of India in the 3rd Century BCE.
This is the only temple in China named after him, and for good reason: This temple claimed to have one of the Ashokan relics, but it was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.
The story, in brief, is this: At the death of the Buddha, eight kings were prepared to duke it out in the "War of the Relics" to gain control of his sarira. Drona, the disciple in charge of the remains, wisely decided to divide them up eight ways. Eight stupas (burial mounds) were built, and the matter was settled.
A few centuries later, Ashoka came along. Initially a brutal conqueror, he converted to Buddhism and, in atonement for atrocities committed, set out on an ambitious program to identify the sites of the Buddha's life (many still marked with "Ashoka pillars"). He also gathered the Buddha's sarira together again, and then redistributed them, dividing them into 84,000 parts, and building 84,000 stupas, and…
Hold on: 84,000?
Impossible, to be sure. Let's say that "84,000" signifies "a very large number," like when we say, "I have a million things to do today."
The number has several connections that may explain its attachment to the Buddha's relics. For one, it's said to be the number of verses in the Buddha's teachings. So by spreading the Buddha's remains, Ashoka was mirroring the spread of the dharma, the Buddha's teachings.
Secondly, some traditions said the world was made up of 84,000 constituent parts (primitive "atoms"). So in spreading the remains, Ashoka was creating a sacralized world parallel to this one.
Finally, another tradition said that the day the Prince Siddhartha--who would become the Buddha--was born, 84,000 boys were born in the world. So Ashoka may have been "rounding out" that event by spreading 84,000 tokens of the Buddha's death.
(Ashoka's capital, by the way, was at Pataliputra, modern Patna, from which the British later administered the distribution another substance to east Asia: opium.)
A redistribution of relics "all over the face of Jambudvipa" (the known world) was also undoubtedly a means of consolidating Ashoka's power. Such redistributions have been carried out by Chinese emperors numerous times since, and relic "gifting" is still done for political reasons.
The stupa of Ashoka's day has evolved into the pagoda of east Asia; any time one sees a pagoda, it represents, if it does not actually contain, the body of the Buddha or another Buddhist "saint." When I was a pilgrim in Japan, I saw dozens of pagodas, but never heard that any of them contained bits of the Buddha, though one was said to contain remains of Xuanzang, the Tang Dynasty monk who went to India to bring back scriptures; the Japanese had looted this from Nanjing in 1942 and brought it back for enshrinement. Interestingly, Xuanzang himself is reported to have had 150 "meat relics" of the Buddha among the many souvenirs he brought back from India.
I have since read that there is one certified Buddha sarira in Japan. Discovered in India in 1897, they were presented by the British to the King of "Siam," who in 1900 gave a portion to the Japanese emperor. He had a new temple built in Nagoya to house them, and named it Nissenji ("Japan-Siam Temple"); it has since been changed to "Nittaiji" to reflect the change of Siam's name to Thailand. These are considered to be the only Buddha relics in Japan.
China, on the other hand, is rife with such relics. When my driver, Mr. Fan, picked me up at the airport in Ningbo, I told him about my impending trip to Ayuwang Temple, and my disappointment that the relic had been destroyed. "No, no," he protested. "My friend was there yesterday, and he saw it!"
Could it be?
I have seen one relic of the Buddha in my life. When I worked at Hsi Lai Temple, in California, they had one in a "stupa room" in the temple museum. It had been presented to the master, Hsing Yun, on a trip to India.
It is small, between the size of a grain of sand and that of BB shot. When kneeling to view it, you’re grateful for the magnifying glass that has been mounted over it.
I once asked the abbot of the temple, a sophisticated man, about the number of relics. Wouldn't they, if reassembled, be bigger than the statues at Bamiyan?
With a perfectly straight face, he explained that when venerated, relics multiply.
Makes sense.
Well, I finally made it to Ayuwang Temple. And laypeople in the place misdirected me several times--one, standing in the actual hall where the relic is housed, sent me off to another. I don't know if they didn't know that the relic was there, or they were trying to hide it from the foreigner, or maybe my Chinese just sucks.
I have seen one relic of the Buddha in my life. When I worked at Hsi Lai Temple, in California, they had one in a "stupa room" in the temple museum. It had been presented to the master, Hsing Yun, on a trip to India.
It is small, between the size of a grain of sand and that of BB shot. When kneeling to view it, you’re grateful for the magnifying glass that has been mounted over it.
I once asked the abbot of the temple, a sophisticated man, about the number of relics. Wouldn't they, if reassembled, be bigger than the statues at Bamiyan?
With a perfectly straight face, he explained that when venerated, relics multiply.
Makes sense.
Well, I finally made it to Ayuwang Temple. And laypeople in the place misdirected me several times--one, standing in the actual hall where the relic is housed, sent me off to another. I don't know if they didn't know that the relic was there, or they were trying to hide it from the foreigner, or maybe my Chinese just sucks.
Anyway, I saw it. But I didn't. Because it was in a box within a reliquary, a sort of miniature stupa. John Strong says that some reliquaries may be designed to obscure rather than reveal; indeed, to see a stupa with a bone hidden underneath may be more impressive than the bare bone itself. Another scholar, Patrick Geary, says that a “bare relic … is entirely without significance.”
Strong says that the most effective way to display a relic is to contextualize it. Thus Buddha relics are often surround by images from the Buddha's life, and the relic (or at least the reliquary) at Ayuwang Temple has an image of the "sleeping Buddha" (actually, the Buddha at his death) behind it.
Strong says that the most effective way to display a relic is to contextualize it. Thus Buddha relics are often surround by images from the Buddha's life, and the relic (or at least the reliquary) at Ayuwang Temple has an image of the "sleeping Buddha" (actually, the Buddha at his death) behind it.
In the final analysis, then, it may not matter whether the bone is there or not, or whether that relic is authentic. What matters is the situation of the relic, and the veneration given to it.
A famous case is that of the renowned Tooth Relic of Kandy.
One of Sri Lanka's most prized possessions, in historical fact it was captured by the Portuguese in 1560 destroyed as a "relic of the devil." Historical accounts state, "The tooth was placed in a mortar by the archbishop [at Goa, India] in presence of the court, and reduced to powder and burned, its ashes being scattered over the sea."
Nevertheless, what appears to be a two-inch piece of yellowed ivory is still on display today. When challenged, the monks in charge explain unabashedly that what was nabbed by the Portuguese was a stand-in, not the real thing, which had been secreted away.
Thus does faith trump history.
This needlessly cruel act, some say, led to the Portuguese losing their grip on "Ceylon." Meanwhile, all is as it was, with the tooth enshrined and venerated. Standard sources do not even mention the historic destruction.
But due to local tensions, the tooth has not made its annual appearance since 1990. And what do the faithful do instead? "In the meantime," we are told, "the casket [reliquary] is honored as its representative." Just like, perhaps, the one at Ayuwang Temple.
But there will be a reckoning, a test of authenticity, according to one tradition, called "The Nirvana of the Relics": just prior to the arrival of Maitreya, the next Buddha (currently represented in China by the figure of the "Laughing Buddha"), all the previous Buddha's relics will rise and fly through the air to Bodhgaya, site of the tree under which the Buddha was enlightened, where they will assemble themselves into the resurrected Buddha. He will perform some miracles, and then spontaneously combust, consuming all the physical remains and disappearing for ever.
Anything left behind will be spurious. But with another, living Buddha in the world, who will care?
A famous case is that of the renowned Tooth Relic of Kandy.
One of Sri Lanka's most prized possessions, in historical fact it was captured by the Portuguese in 1560 destroyed as a "relic of the devil." Historical accounts state, "The tooth was placed in a mortar by the archbishop [at Goa, India] in presence of the court, and reduced to powder and burned, its ashes being scattered over the sea."
Nevertheless, what appears to be a two-inch piece of yellowed ivory is still on display today. When challenged, the monks in charge explain unabashedly that what was nabbed by the Portuguese was a stand-in, not the real thing, which had been secreted away.
Thus does faith trump history.
This needlessly cruel act, some say, led to the Portuguese losing their grip on "Ceylon." Meanwhile, all is as it was, with the tooth enshrined and venerated. Standard sources do not even mention the historic destruction.
But due to local tensions, the tooth has not made its annual appearance since 1990. And what do the faithful do instead? "In the meantime," we are told, "the casket [reliquary] is honored as its representative." Just like, perhaps, the one at Ayuwang Temple.
But there will be a reckoning, a test of authenticity, according to one tradition, called "The Nirvana of the Relics": just prior to the arrival of Maitreya, the next Buddha (currently represented in China by the figure of the "Laughing Buddha"), all the previous Buddha's relics will rise and fly through the air to Bodhgaya, site of the tree under which the Buddha was enlightened, where they will assemble themselves into the resurrected Buddha. He will perform some miracles, and then spontaneously combust, consuming all the physical remains and disappearing for ever.
Anything left behind will be spurious. But with another, living Buddha in the world, who will care?