Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s3.t27: Dabaoen Temple
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s3.t27
- Language
- English
Dabaoen Temple
v1.c7.s3.t27.1
Dabaoen Temple (Dabao’en Vihar) is one of the most important ancient Buddhist temples in China. Its predecessor is Jianchu Temple located outside Zhonghua Gate in Nanjing. During Jin and Southern Dynasties, it was called Chang’an Temple. In Duangong first year of the Northern Song Dynasty (988 CE), monk Kezheng got the parietal bone sarira (relics) of Master Xuanzang and built a pagoda in Chang’an Temple to store it. As time rolled into Tianxi first year (1071), the Chang'an
v1.c7.s3.t27.2
*A Complete Picture of the Gilded Pagoda of the Dabaoen Temple, preserved at the Nanjing City Archives*
v1.c7.s3.t27.3
Temple was rebuilt and renamed as Tianxi Temple. The name remained unchanged until the Zhiyuan 25th year of Yuan Dynasty (1288) when the temple was renamed again by the emperor as the Yuanxing Ci’en Jingzhongjiao Temple and the pagoda was referred to as Ci'en Pagoda. In the early years of Ming Dynasty, the temple was damaged in a fire but it was restored during the period of the reign of Emperor Yongle, Ming Dynasty (1403-1424) and named as the Dabaoen Temple.
v1.c7.s3.t27.4
The coloured glaze pagoda of the Dabaoen Temple was built by Emperor Yongle in memory of his mother. This was 80 m in height and nearly 100 m in perimeter with nine floors and eight sides. The cost of the entire work was 2.485 million taels of silver in 20 years with 1,00,000 workers involved in it. From the beginning of Ming Dynasty all the way down to the early Qing Dynasty, the coloured glaze pagoda of Dabao’en Temple, in westerner’s minds, was the most unique landmark in Nanjing and called it the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing. Unfortunately in 1856, the temple was bombed out by Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and laid in ruins until 2004 when the Nanjing government began to make preparations for the restoration of the temple. In 2007, the preliminary work of the Dabaoen Temple Relics Park officially kicked off and around 2008, a long-term archaeological excavation job was carried out by some departments including the Nanjing Museum, during which, a stone box made in Song Dynasty was discovered which had a record of Dānapāla (an Indian translator of Buddhist Sutras) handing out Buddha relics, together with an iron box containing the gilded Asokan pillar made of seven treasures (precious metals). In 2010, this precious Asokan pillar was opened, thus bringing the Buddha’s parietal (usnisa) sarira to light again.
v1.c7.s3.t27.5
*A picture of the gilded pagoda of the Dabaoen Temple (also known as the Nanjing porcelain pagoda), Nanjing, China, painted by Dutchman John Nieuhoff during the mid-17th century CE*