The famous underground palace of the underground palace
The treasures in the temple are so numerous and valuable that they cannot be seen in other temples. Famen Temple can also be said to be a treasure house of rare cultural relics.
Famen Temple is located in Famen Town, 10 kilometers north of Fufeng County, Shaanxi Province. More than 100 kilometers away from Xi'an, it is a famous temple in my country that houses the relics of Sakyamuni's true body. It was founded in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The original temple was very large, covering an area of more than 100 acres, with 24 courtyards. There were more than 500 monks in the Tang Dynasty. There is an eight-sided 13-story pagoda in the temple, 47 meters high, with 89 Buddhist niches on the 1st to 12th floors. It is an imitation wood structure building style, with eaves and brackets on each floor, with exquisite workmanship and gorgeous decorations. There are also inscriptions on the bottom of the tower, with the words "True Body Pagoda", "Meiyang Important Town", "Relics Flying in Dew", "Futu Shining Sun" and other words. The tower was in disrepair and half of its body collapsed in August 1981. In 1987, the state allocated funds to rebuild the Famen Temple Tower. When cleaning the base of the tower, an underground palace sealed with stone letters was discovered. The number of treasures in the underground palace is dizzying.
The underground palace of Famen Temple is the largest pagoda underground palace discovered so far in my country. It consists of brick steps, tunnels, front rooms, middle rooms, back rooms, etc. It is all made of stone. There are four stone gates. Tao, the architectural structure is magnificent and was built in the Tang Dynasty. Among the treasures in the underground palace, the most valuable is the true relic of Sakyamuni hidden in the eight-layered treasure letter. According to expert research and inspection, it is determined that this is indeed the true body relic of Sakyamuni Buddha that the emperor of the Tang Dynasty worshiped many times. It is also the only remaining Buddha finger relic in the known world.
There are also 121 gold and silver wares, 17 glass wares, 16 secret color porcelains, 12 stone wares, 16 iron wares, 19 lacquered wood and miscellaneous wares, and pearls, jade and gemstones in the underground palace. There are about 400 pieces (pieces), and a large number of textile items. The above-mentioned items were all collected during the Tang Dynasty. They are of various varieties, exquisite workmanship, priceless, and rare in the world.
After expert appraisal, it was confirmed that 10 of these rare treasures are "the best in the world".
①The four Buddha finger relics unearthed from the underground palace are the highest sacred objects in the Buddhist world today;
②The underground palace is the oldest, largest and highest-level one in the world. The underground palace of the pagoda;
③ The way the cultural relics are displayed in the underground palace is the earliest mandala tantric ritual discovered in archaeological excavations in the world;
④ The discovery of 13 tortoiseshell coins is The most precious ancient silk items discovered so far in the world;
⑤A set of gold and silver tea sets, which are the earliest and highest-grade imperial tea sets discovered in the world;
⑥The 1.96-meter-long gilt tin staff with 4 wheels and 12 rings of gold flowers is the earliest, largest, highest-grade, and most exquisitely crafted Buddhist instrument found in the world;
⑦13 pieces of porcelain specially used for the palace ——Secret color porcelain is the earliest and most exquisite palace porcelain found in the world that has been confirmed by inscriptions;
⑧The largest number of ancient silk categories and crafts found in the world;
< p>⑨The eight-layer treasure letter that collects the Buddha's finger relics is the most exquisite treasure letter with the most layers found in the world;⑩The picture of the Vajra Realm's Great Mandala Mandala engraved on the treasure letter.
Why are there so many treasures hidden in Famen Temple? It turns out that Famen Temple was a royal temple in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. The emperor of the Tang Dynasty came here eight times to welcome the relics. After each visit, the emperor gave back a large number of treasures, which were hidden in the underground palace. For thousands of years, there have been many magical legends surrounding the Qinling Underground Palace. "The Story of Sanfu" records that Xiang Yu, the overlord of Chu, entered the Pass and used 300,000 people to rob the Qin Mausoleum. During the excavation, a golden goose suddenly flew out of the tomb. This magical flying goose flew southward. Hundreds of years have passed. During the Three Kingdoms period, in the first year of Baoding, someone gave a golden goose to an official named Zhang Shan. He immediately judged from the words on the golden goose that the object came from the Mausoleum of the First Emperor... This kind of magical legend is even more... It casts a mysterious color on the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang.
The hillock located at the foot of Lishan Mountain is the tomb of Qin Shihuang, and under the hillock is the deep and mysterious underground palace. On the north side of the enclosure, there are the ceremonial buildings of the dormitories and the official buildings. Outside the enclosure, there are two 10-kilometer-long inner and outer city walls. There are hundreds of underground burial pits around the enclosure and on the east, west, south, and north sides. The enclosure, underground palace, and inner and outer walls of Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum The shape, ceremonial architecture and layout are different from any royal cemetery in the pre-Qin Dynasty. This imperial mausoleum is grand in scale and unique in design. The scale of the cemetery project, the number of workers employed, and the duration were unprecedented.
The first person to record the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang was the master historian Sima Qian.
He left a 160-word record in "Historical Records: The Chronicles of Qin Shihuang". "Historical Records" records that "the tomb of the First Emperor's Mausoleum is more than fifty feet high." Its height was calculated to be about 115 meters based on the ruler at that time. The height measured by local authorities in 1961 was 43 meters. In 1982, with the assistance of soldiers from the 8383th Army Corps of Engineers, the soil sealing of the mausoleum was measured again, and the result was that the height of the tomb was 55.05 meters. Later aerial measurements of altitude were similar. It can be seen that due to water and soil erosion over the past two thousand years, the height of the soil seal has dropped by more than half from the original level. The bottom edge of the seal is rectangular, 515 meters long from north to south and 485 meters wide from east to west, covering an area of nearly 250,000 square meters.
The construction of the cemetery project accompanied Qin Shihuang’s political career throughout his life. When he first ascended the throne of Qin at the age of 13, the cemetery project also began. Qin Shihuang was not the first emperor to build mausoleums during his lifetime. As early as the Warring States Period, it had become a common practice for princes and kings to build tombs during their lifetimes. For example, Zhao Suhou "built the Shouling Mausoleum in the fifteenth year" ("Historical Records: Zhao Family"), and the tomb of King Zhongshan in Pingshan County was also built during his lifetime. Qin Shihuang just advanced the time of building the mausoleum during the monarch's lifetime to the early stage of his accession to the throne. The construction of the cemetery project was not completed until the death of Qin Shihuang. Looking at the cemetery project, it can be divided into three construction stages. The 26 years from King Qin's accession to the throne to the unification of the country was the initial stage of the cemetery project. At this stage, the design of the cemetery project and the construction of the main project were carried out successively, and the scale and basic layout of the cemetery were initially established. From the unification of the country to the thirty-fifth year of Qin Shi Huang, these nine years should be regarded as a period of large-scale construction of the cemetery project. "Historical Records" records: "When the world was united, more than 700,000 people were sent to the world." After more than 100,000 people and more than 9 years of large-scale construction, the main project of the cemetery was basically completed. From the thirty-fifth year of Qin Shihuang to the winter of the second year of Qin II, it lasted more than three years and was the final stage of the project. This stage mainly involves the finishing works and soil covering work of the cemetery. Although the mausoleum project took 378 years, the entire project was still not completed. A magnificent peasant uprising broke out that year. The rebel leaders Chen Sheng and Wu Guang's subordinate Zhou Wen led their troops to the vicinity of Playwater, less than a few kilometers away from the cemetery (near today's Xinfeng Town, Lintong County). Faced with the overwhelming force of the army and the threat to Xianyang, Qin II, the new emperor who had not been tested by wind and rain, was panicked. In desperation, he summoned his ministers to discuss countermeasures. With a look of despair, he asked the ministers "What can be done about it?" pleading. After a period of silence, Zhang Han, the commander of the Shaofu, suggested: "The thieves have arrived, and we are in all frontiers. It is too late to send troops to the county. There are many disciples in Lishan. Please pardon them and send troops to attack them." The frightened second emperor immediately responded and said, It was decided that Zhang Han would directly lead the Xiuling army to fight back against Zhou Wen's rebel army. The cemetery project, which had not yet been fully completed, had to be suspended.
The designers of the Qin Mausoleum Project not only carefully selected a geomantic treasure, but also designed the overall layout of the cemetery with great ingenuity. The Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang is centered on a tall tomb. Outside the tomb are two rammed-earth city walls in the shape of a zigzag. There is a gate on each side of the outer city wall. The east gate is located on the east-west axis in the center of the tomb and is the largest gate. Except for the two gates on the north wall of the inner city, there is one gate on each of the other three sides. In particular, the Quemen ruins at the south gate of the inner city still stand to the south of the tomb, which is a spectacular sight.
Thousands of years have passed, and the tall mountain-like tomb of the Qin Mausoleum still stands at the foot of Lishan Mountain. The 10-kilometer-long rammed earth city wall inside and outside has long been incomplete. All that can be seen now is the remaining section of the west wall of the inner city. The magnificent above-ground buildings were burned by Xiang Yu more than 2,000 years ago. On the remaining ruins, archaeologists discovered the ruins of the mausoleum complex, which is large in scale and concentrated on the north side of the seal and the western half of the inner city. department. A complex of ground buildings was also discovered between the inner and outer city walls in the northwest of Fengtu. According to the cleared three groups of house building foundations, they appear to be the buildings of the Feeding Officials. There are several groups of ground buildings that have not been excavated on the north and south sides of the ruins of the Feeding Officials' buildings, and their scale is also considerable.
Before the 1960s, all speculations about the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang could only be based on documentary records and rumors. On March 29, 1974, when several farmers from the Xiyang Village Production Team of the Lower River Brigade woke up the sleeping terracotta warriors and horses with a hoe, they immediately shocked the world. This astonishing discovery also lifted up the mystery of Qin Ling.
The Mausoleum of the First Emperor is an underground "kingdom" full of magic. The deep underground palace is full of mysteries. The shape and internal structure of the underground palace are still not completely clear. It has inspired many literati over the past thousands of years. The poet's speculation and reverie.
Sima Qian only left a very brief record in his writing: "Pierce through three springs, lower the copper into the coffin, and fill it with palaces, hundreds of officials, and rare artifacts and treasures. Let the craftsmen make crossbow arrows, and those who have penetrated will often come close." Shoot it. Using mercury as a symbol of the rivers and seas, it has astronomy on top and geography as a candle on the bottom." Archaeological experts use this as a clue to find clues. There are various clues to the mystery of the Qin Mausoleum underground palace. The imperial tombs of the Northern Song Dynasty are divided into four major mausoleum areas: Zhao Hongyin's Yong'an Mausoleum is located north of Junji Peak, the main peak of Taishi Mountain in Songshan Mountain, Zhao Kuangyin's Yongchang Mausoleum is located 400 meters northwest of the Yong'an Mausoleum, and Zhao Guangyi's Yongxi Mausoleum The mausoleum is located more than 1,000 meters northwest of the Yongchang Mausoleum, which is called the Xicun Mausoleum District; the Yongding Mausoleum of Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty is located in a new mausoleum area directly north of the Xicun Mausoleum District, which is called the Caizhuang Mausoleum District; the Yongzhao Mausoleum of Song Renzong is located directly north of the Caizhuang Mausoleum District. Moving on to the Xinling District, the Yonghou Mausoleum of Emperor Yingzong of the Song Dynasty was located 200 meters northwest of the Yongzhao Mausoleum, which is called the Xiaoyi Mausoleum District. At this point, the imperial mausoleum area has extended to the bank of the Luo River, and the Yongyu Mausoleum of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty had to "catch up." "A new mausoleum area was opened 3 kilometers west of the Xicun Mausoleum. The Yongtai Mausoleum of Song Zhezong was located 600 meters northwest of the Yongyu Mausoleum, which is called the Baling Mausoleum Area.
After Renzong's death, the funeral was held in the palace, and then the imperial court sent people to Gongyi City to survey the site of the mausoleum. There were two places selected: one was Yong'an County (now Gongyi, Dengfeng, A mausoleum was set up in the mausoleum area at the junction of the three places in Yanshi, named Yong'an County. It was promoted to Yong'an Army during Huizong's reign, which is now Zhitian Town, Gongyi. The second one is Xiaoyi Fort (today's Gongyi City). At that time, ministers discussed that building a mausoleum in Yong'an County would require the relocation of tens of thousands of households. The project was too large and the time was tight, so it might not be completed within seven months. The construction of the mausoleum began only after the death of the emperor of the Song Dynasty, and he had to be buried within 7 months and the holy face, that is, the emperor's soul, must be returned to the Ancestral Temple. So it was decided to build a mausoleum in Xiaoyi Fort (now the burial place). At that time, Huo Daoquan, the Feng Shui Immortal of Zhitian, suggested that this place was unlucky (in fact, Si Tianjian's first choice for the mausoleum was also in the urban area of Yong'an County). Because the place was called "He'eryuan" at that time, it was considered a "bad omen". Sure enough, in less than 4 years, Renzong's successor Song Yingzong, Zhao Shu (Renzong's three sons all died early, Zhao Shu was adopted into the palace when he was 4 years old, and he was the grandson of Taizong) passed away (Yingzong died on the 4th day after he succeeded to the throne) He started to fall ill and became bedridden), and he really answered the prophecy of "He'er".
The area of Yongzhao Tomb and Yonghou Tomb is small, and the distance between the two tombs is only more than 200 meters. In the past, the two tombs were almost connected together. Today, a north-south Xinhua Road separates the two tombs. There are many high-rise buildings on both sides of Xinhua Road, including hospitals, emergency centers, hotels, etc. "According to the provisions of the Cultural Relics Law, high-rise buildings should not be built between the two tombs." said an expert on Song Tombs.
Song Shenzong had a rough life - Wang Anshi's reform was turbulent; his tragic defeat on the battlefield made him burst into tears, and he cried so much that all the ministers in the court "didn't dare to look up". This hard-working king was depressed from then on, "sick with fear and illness", and "hurriedly drove away" with unfinished ambitions. The Yongyu Mausoleum where he was buried is now the least well-protected among the imperial mausoleums. More than 10 stone statues have lost their heads, and the house guarding the mausoleum was rented out by the mausoleum guards to a family from the south. Fu Yongkui even vaguely felt that the stone statues of Yongyu Mausoleum had lost their place in recent years. There are many chimneys near Yongyu Mausoleum, and sewage flows to the feet of the stone statues, while the entire mausoleum area is in a big pit.
During the reign of Emperor Zhezong of the Song Dynasty, the country was in conflict and conflict, and party disputes were chaotic. He was helpless. "There were many things to do, but he could not accomplish any of them." This planted the root of the demise of the Song Dynasty. When the famous thinker Wang Fuzhi commented on the political affairs of Zhe Zong's dynasty, he said, "Infinite disasters will be caused from now on." Cai Jing is his "legacy." After his death, his coffin was subjected to heavy rain on the way from Kaifeng to Gongyi. Due to the muddy road, the coffin failed to arrive at Gongyi as scheduled, which delayed the custom of "burial in July" since Zhao Kuangyin. Later, his bones were thrown into the wilderness by grave robbers. Later, his successors Huizong and even Qinzong died in foreign countries and were not buried in the "old grave". Therefore, although there were nine emperors in the Northern Song Dynasty, Gongyi only had "seven emperors and eight tombs".
“There are lions in Dongling (Yongyu), elephants in Xiling (Yongtai), and good stone sheep in Hutuo (Yongxi).” This is a jingle of the local people, commenting on the stone carvings of the tombs in the Song Dynasty. The pros and cons of gains and losses. In fact, more stones are not guarding the imperial tombs on the ground like stone carvings, but are used by the emperor underground.
Historical records show that when Zhezong’s Yongtai Mausoleum was built, 4,600 craftsmen were employed and 27,600 pieces of stone were quarried.
They also mobilized 9,744 soldiers and 500 civilians to transport these stones from Suzi Mountain in Yanshi, which is 20 to 30 kilometers away and among the lofty mountains. easily weathered) were transported to the mausoleum area.
In 1100 AD, Zhezong fell ill and "died within a few days." On the tenth day of the second lunar month, the quarrying team arrived at the construction site after gathering. In order to be "buried in July", the quarrying work must be completed on May 11th. The project is large and the construction period is tight. Officials such as Shanling Envoy and other officials supervise the work as urgent as a spark. Because the working conditions were poor and there was no drinking water, more than 1,700 people fell ill and died day after day on the construction site where they slept in the open. Most of these dead bodies were abandoned among the rocks in the wilderness. According to the "Quarry Stele": "Everyone who lives in the mountains thinks that it has been gloomy for a long time. They often hear people singing like servants in the mountains, which means that they are unfortunate and have died. The ghosts have not been liberated and are living happily. Of course. "When the Yongding Mausoleum was built, 62 stones were used to carve attendants, elephants, horses and other animals, 14 were used for door stones, and 27,377 stones were used for the imperial hall. From this point of view, the stone used in the imperial palace is the most important thing, and the imperial palace built with these stones is still sleeping underground, and we have not had the opportunity to take a peek.
When building the Yongzhao Mausoleum, in addition to official government funding, 1.5 million guan, 2.5 million pieces of silk, and 500,000 taels of silver were also allocated from the fiscal surplus as subsidies for the construction of the mausoleum. There are 46,700 sergeants, civilians, craftsmen, and handymen working on the mausoleum every day. For seven months, these people worked day and night in the mausoleum area for Renzong.
The imperial mausoleum built by a poor country’s financial and material resources and the skilled craftsmen from all over the world were not all returned to earth. The brick and wooden palace on the ground in Kaifeng has long been reduced to ashes, while the palace in Gongyi still sleeps underground. "There is no trivial matter in the royal family, and death is as important as life." The palaces of the Gongyi Mausoleums are not inferior to the Kaifeng Palace in terms of construction difficulty, quantity of labor, and money consumption. The imperial hall is more than 20 meters high and covers an area of about 3,000 square meters. A palace is at least as big as the current three 7-story, 3-unit residential buildings put together! There are eight such behemoths buried underground in Gongyi City. The underground palaces of queens, princes and ministers are slightly smaller in scale, but their number is huge, with more than 1,000.
The southernmost of the three rear tombs of the Yongxi Mausoleum is suspected to be the mausoleum of the Li family and was stolen in the early years. After entering through the robbery hole in front of the mausoleum, you can see that the tomb is a nearly circular polygon with a brick-like wood structure (most of the tombs before Zhenzong were made of brick, and later they were mostly made of stone). The roof of the tomb was painted into a blue-gray sky, with the Milky Way and stars painted in white powder, and the surrounding walls were painted with colorful paintings of buildings, clouds, etc. There are jade albums and more than 80 fragments of green-glazed, white-glazed and black-glazed porcelain remaining in the tomb. Among them, the Ding kiln porcelain with the word "official" and the Yue kiln dragon pattern large plate are particularly rare. This tomb, which has been cleared by archaeologists for some reason, is a microcosm of the more than 1,000 underground tombs in Gongyi City.
In September 1022 AD, Empress Dowager Liu summoned the ministers of civil and military affairs to prepare the burial items for Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty, including beads, jade boxes and various "useful items for his life as a royal wearer". The Queen Mother, the emperor and ministers also discussed how to deal with the large number of "auspicious things" and "heavenly books" collected and enshrined by Zhenzong. Some said they should continue to be enshrined, some said they should be burned and sent back to the "heavenly palace", and some It was said that a palace should be built for collection... In the end, Prime Minister Wang once proposed: "The heavenly books that descended successively and the auspicious objects contributed by the whole country are special gifts from the Emperor of Heaven to the late emperor. This honor belongs to the late emperor. Now, the late emperor has After ascending to immortality, the heavenly books and auspicious objects should be returned to the palace to be enshrined together with the late emperor, and they must not be left in the human world." Therefore, all "heavenly books" and "auspicious objects" were used as burial objects before the emperor's coffin. Sent to Yongding Mausoleum and buried in the mausoleum. Later generations praised Wang Zeng's measure as "knowing the secrets" - burying the "heavenly book" and "auspicious things" under the banner of "glory belongs to the late emperor", which not only eliminated the superstitious atmosphere in the court caused by Zhenzong , and also eliminated the waste of funds caused by building temples, which achieved numerous benefits.
When the Yongding Mausoleum is excavated in the future, maybe those "heavenly books" and "auspicious objects" will still be there, and maybe we can see what they are. Zhenzong was the last emperor to go to Mount Tai to enshrine Zen. He was good at pretending to be gods and ghosts, and was very superstitious, but he had no descendants.
Among the funerary objects of Zhenzong, there is also a huge instrument that cannot even get out of the Kaifeng city gate. It "breaks the city gate" all the way, accompanied by the Dashenglongyu that carries the emperor's coffin, leading the way The 5-kilometer-long funeral procession passed through Zhongmou, Zhengzhou, and Xingyang to Gongyi, and then crossed the Fengxian Bridge on the Luo River in front of the Sigou Ridge in Huaxiang, Yanshi Mountain (Later Renzong built the Huisheng Palace on the ridge north of the bridge to enshrine the funeral procession). The emperor's holy face is called the Imperial Ancestral Temple in the mausoleum area. There is a special road leading to the tombs here. There is still a large stele about 10 meters high at the site of Huisheng Palace. It is the only stone stele from the Song Dynasty that remains in the original site of the entire Song Tomb. ) and was buried in Yongding Mausoleum. The Chongling Underground Palace is the only open underground palace in the Western Tombs of the Qing Dynasty. The entire underground palace is a stone structure. The total length of the tomb passage is 63.19 meters. There are four stone gates and nine passes. Each stone gate is topped with a copper pipe fan weighing more than ten tons, which can not only support the huge stone on the door, but also It can open and close the huge and heavy stone door with a height of 3.52 meters freely. There is a stone gate tower carved from a whole piece of blue and white stone above the stone door. On the eight stone doors, there is a vivid statue of Bodhisattva in relief, symbolizing the entry of the souls of Emperor Guangxu and Empress into the Buddha. The kingdom of heaven, the world of bliss.
After passing through the fourth stone gate and entering the Golden Coupon, you can see that the Zi Palace of Emperor Guangxu is placed on a huge stone bed, with Guangxu in the middle and Longyu on the left. There are sixteen colorful landscapes around the Zi Palace. Yunlong's Longshan stone clamps the corners of Zi Palace. Both Zi Palaces have an inner coffin and an outer coffin. The Guangxu Emperor's coffin is painted in vermilion and is engraved with gilded Tibetan and Sanskrit mantras as well as decorative patterns on the bottom that end with ten thousand characters. The top cover of Empress Longyu's coffin is engraved with gold. There is a phoenix with nine seated Bodhisattva statues carved on the golden phoenix head, painted with gold in five colors and beautiful in shape. It is a high-level wood carving work of art. The Cixi Underground Palace is smaller in scale than the Yuling Underground Palace, but its decoration is unique. Except for the second door, which has a moonstone carving pattern, the rest are all made of crystal white white marble. The stone carving technology is also quite superb.