On the ninth day of the first month of March, it is a big day for the Ximing Temple of Chang'an City to display the Buddha's bone relics, and even the banquet for this year's new jinshi has to be postponed.

Buddha bones, is commonly known as relics, that is, Sanskrit Sarira, the source is very clear, the Buddha Shakyamuni after the cremation of the solid objects, can be divided into three kinds, black called hair relics, red called meat relics, and white called bone relics, the common point is round and clean, strong and unbroken. Legend has it that the Buddha passed away and was cremated in the land of the Mora people, and then seven kings from all over India came to ask for relics, and the Mora people divided the Buddha's relics into eight parts and divided them equally. And there is a bottle containing the relics, which was given to go by the country of Turona and built a "bottle tower", as for the famous Peacock King messenger, because he was late, he could only bring back the ashes of the Buddha to build a tower to worship, so in a broad sense - the relics of the Buddha have ten towers in India to worship.

Originally, this was normal, but in the time of Ashoka, it was a bit of a rupture, and Ashoka took out the relics and ashes of the Buddha in the ten pagodas, and actually divided them into 84,000 treasure letters, and said that one treasure letter and one pagoda should raise 84,000 stupas in the world.

It can basically be said that the possibility that the Buddha's bones are left by the Buddha is about 1 in 8,400, but many later generations of monks will also appear in the cremation of relics, and later they will no longer be strictly distinguished, and they will all be worshipped.

Buddhism quickly spread to the land of Asia through this wish of Emperor Ashoka, and China must not be willing to be lonely at that time, so there was an opportunity to "welcome the Buddha's bones", and the relics of Shakyamuni were sprinkled on the land of China. To the Tang Dynasty, there are a total of seventeen pagodas in China with the so-called relics, and the Qishan South Pagoda (that is, the Famen Temple Tower) is close to the capital Chang'an, so it is the most popular, and the Tang Dynasty rulers have repeatedly "welcomed the Buddha's bones" moves, which are basically ushered in from the Famen Temple Tower.

The so-called welcome, in fact, is to solemnly take out the Buddha bones in the tower, send them to the temple of Chang'an City, for the people to see and worship, and then send them into the forbidden area, and be guarded by the emperor (in fact, it is to enjoy) for a period of time, which is often accompanied by the enthusiasm of crazy almsgiving.

Of course, the religious act of welcoming the Buddha's bones is absolutely inseparable from politics. Tang Taizong was wise and wise, during his reign because the Buddhists stood on the wrong side in the struggle for the prince (at that time Buddhism stood on Li Jiancheng's side, Taoism stood on Li Shimin's side), so he was skeptical of the Buddha's bones, and sent officials to the Famen Temple to check the authenticity before Ying, and the result was a joke as soon as the Buddha's bones went: some people said that the Buddha's bones were white, some people said that the Buddha's bones were golden, and some people said that the Buddha's bones were green (emmmmm), some people said that they were red light, some people said that they were colorful lights, and only an honest person said that the Buddha's bones were not light!

As a result, this honest man was immediately isolated, and the monk frantically accused him, saying that he had too many sins in his life, so he couldn't see the Buddha's light, but this person was scared half to death, and finally burned his hair and burned his fingers, and even stabbed his own flesh and blood flowed all over the ground, and then it was estimated that he was really crazy, saying that he finally got forgiveness, and I could see the Buddha's light, and then I could get out.

Of course, you can see it if you are sincere, but if you can't see it, you must be insincere, and in the end, you can deceive yourself into being naturally sincere, and the tricks of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign religions are nothing more than that.

So you say that Li Shimin is like this, will you believe it?

Of course not, but Li Shimin is a smart person, and all smart people understand reasoning, but if you want a stupid person to understand, it is better to engage in superstition faster, so Taizong still ordered to open the Buddha's bones in the Famen Temple Tower, and as a result, "inside and outside the Beijing Division, collapse (Ben) Teng went together". This trend intensified in the era of Wu Zetian, Wu in order to ascend the throne to create public opinion, said that the Buddha will be reincarnated as a female body after 9,999 years, that is, implying that she is the reincarnation of the Buddha, can be the empress, even in the last year of her reign, but also held a grand ceremony to welcome the Buddha's bones in Luoyang City, the result is not over, the bloody coup d'état will swarm, the Buddha can not bless Wu Zetian, can only give way.

Although Wu Zhou overturned, the Tang Dynasty later had to welcome the Buddha bones about once every 30 years, forming a convention, but there were also changes, such as Xuanzong did not welcome it due to political reasons, and counted Taizong once, Gaozong once, Wu Zetian once, Tang Suzong welcomed the Buddha bones for the fourth time in the first year of the Shangyuan Dynasty, that is, in 760, this time it was inseparable from politics - Tang Suzong started in Lingwu, relying on the military strength of the northwest feudal town, and the Northwest army mostly believed in Buddhism Hu people, Suzong in order to draw a line with his father who believed in Taoism, It is impossible to win the support of this group of soldiers without welcoming the Buddha's bones.

In the future, Tang Xianzong also welcomed the Buddha bones in 819 A.D. (the sixth and fifth times were welcomed by Tang Dezong), and it was also because of the war to pacify the feudal town that achieved good results, so as to create public opinion for the revival of the prosperous era. But this time it was a bit of a big fuss, and a man named Han Yu wrote a "Greeting the Buddha's Bone Table", which violently attacked this behavior at an inopportune time, without any sympathy for Xianzong's intentions (even Pei Du said that Han Yu was a nerd).

So Han Yu quickly went to Chaozhou to raise crocodiles. If Han Yue was tough in the end, he would be a good man, but after arriving in Chaozhou, he saw poisonous insects all over the ground and swarms of crocodiles, and the pride of "collecting my bones by the river" was suddenly gone, and he immediately wrote a "Chaozhou Thorn History Xie Table", and begged Xianzong for mercy, and even Han Yu's friends were stunned.

However, Han Yu's anti-Buddha remarks actually indicate that the contest between the forces of worshipping Buddha and anti-Buddha in the Tang Dynasty has begun to surface and become more and more intense, so it is logical that "Wuzong will destroy Buddha" later.

The Buddha bones of the Famen Temple Tower, have always been claimed to be the finger bones of Sakyamuni, but there are so many temples in Chang'an City, the competition is so fierce, everyone wants to get the Buddha bone relics, to win a lot of alms, so there is the so-called "shadow bone", to put it bluntly, it is to make a Xibei goods, to meet the pious needs of good men and women, after all, every 30 years in the Famen Temple to open the tower, many people can not stand it, the royal family, the military is also acquiesced and even supported by this.

No, Ximing Temple on the ninth day of March is known as the new Buddha bone that is different from Famen Temple from the Puban Pagoda in Hedong, which is placed in the glass cup, which can be viewed by Chang'an Shishu.

For a while, the news spread all over Chang'an City, and people were boiling.

On the seventh day of the first month, the vehicle that placed the "glazed Buddha bone" of the Puban Pagoda in Hedong entered Beijing, went to Ximing Temple, the people of each square in Chang'an County placed fragrant flowers and candles, flocked to kneel and worship on both sides of the street, bowed to the vehicle, and the sound of chanting resounded in the sky.

In the afternoon, the emperor in the Daming Palace issued an order: let the princess, the county lord and the county lord all cut off a strand of hair, and personally sent it to Ximing Temple on the eighth day of the first month, and then after the Buddha's bones were returned to the Puban Tower, they were closed in the tower with their hair, in order to beg for blessings.

In the evening, several backbones of Taofen Shed, under the remote command of Gao Yue, appeared on the streets of Yankangfang, walking around, carefully observing the architectural layout of Ximing Temple.