Famen Temple, Xian is one of the most revered temples in Xian and also makes for one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city. There are many temples in China that house treasures and artifacts, but the sheer quantity and quality of treasures in the Famen Temple in Xian is unusual. The Famen Temple is located in Fufeng County, 118 kilometers to the west of Xian and was built during the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220AD). The temple was built to store a relic of Buddha's finger bone. In 1987 the largest Buddhist underground palace in China was also discovered in this place.
The Famen Temple, Xian has a brief history behind it. The history of Famen Si begins in the 2d century AD, when a pagoda was built to receive a relic of Ashoka, believed to be a finger-bone1 of the historical Buddha. This relic was periodically taken from the pagoda and paraded to the imperial court at Xian for the reverence of the faithful. The Famen temple soon became the royal temple in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The temple was supported lavishly by Wu Zetian, the Tang Dynasty Empress. Around 874, the relic was sealed in the pagoda's subterranean crypt, where it remained undisturbed for the next 1100 years.
The original pagoda did not endure the intervening centuries, although its crypt was not plundered. In Ming times, a new pagoda was erected over the crypt. After the collapse of the Ming pagoda in 1981, the archaeologists discovered and opened the crypt. They found the original relic of Ashoka, along with many Tang-era treasures including gilded statues, nested reliquaries, precious cultural relics, incense burners, and other precious objects in the crypt.
Famen Temple Museum was built in 1989 for better preservation of these rare treasures. You can see the various golden and silver wares, glass, china, stone and iron wares, wood, genuine pearls, jades and many kinds of dry goods in this museum. Among all the treasures housed in it, a gold-plating Buddhist abbot's staff with a length of 1.96 meters (6.43 ft) is the oldest and biggest Buddhist object ever found. The collection also includes 13 pieces of royal china that could not be made today because the techniques of making them have already vanished.
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