The repression of religion after the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party reached its peak with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, during the “Breaking the Four Olds” campaign. The “breaking of the Four Olds” refers to the destruction of old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits. At that time, monasteries, Taoist temples, Buddhist statues, famous monuments, paintings and antiques became the main objects of destruction by the Red Guards.
Take Buddha statues as an example, there are a thousand glazed relief Buddha statues at the top of Wanshou Mountain in the Summer Palace in Beijing, by “breaking the four old”, it is surprising that all the five senses are incomplete, none intact. Dai County, Shanxi built 1600 years ago in the Northern Wei Taiyan years of the Tiantai Temple, to statues, frescoes precious and famous, the Red Guards went to the statues, frescoes swept away.
In Shaanxi Province, Zhouzhi County, there is a Louguantai, is 2,500 years ago Laozi preaching and teaching and left the heirloom of the work “Tao Te Ching” place. Centered on the “Sutra Terrace” where he preached, there are more than fifty monuments scattered within a ten-mile radius, including the “Zongsheng Palace” built for him by Li Yuan, the Tang emperor, which is now more than 1,300 years old. However, during the Cultural Revolution, not only were the monuments destroyed, but also the Taoist priests were all forced to leave. According to the rules, Taoist priests were never allowed to shave their beards or heads after becoming monks, and some of them became the sons-in-law of local farmers.
In addition, the world’s first Buddhist treasure, one of the three holy statues personally opened by Buddha Shakyamuni when he was alive: the eight-year-old equivalent statue was destroyed; Confucius’ tomb was razed, and the clay statue in the Confucius Temple was destroyed …… countless temples were destroyed, countless Buddha statues were wrecked, and countless monks were forced to return to lay. The land of China, which was once filled with temples and Taoist temples, has long been devastated after the devastation of the Cultural Revolution. This article is a representative of one of them, the first ancient temple in China, the White Horse Temple, which was devastated by the Cultural Revolution.
The origin of the White Horse Temple
“The bright moon owes its debt to the ancient temple, and outside the forest, I ascended to a high building. The south wind opens the promenade, and the summer day is as cool as autumn.” The ancient temple depicted in this poem by Wang Changling of the Tang Dynasty is the White Horse Temple, located 12 kilometers east of the old city of Luoyang in Henan Province. It was the first temple built after Buddhism was introduced to China, and is therefore also known as the “ancestral court” and “source of Buddhism”.
There is an amazing story behind the construction of Baima Temple. According to historical records, one night during the Yongping period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Emperor Liu Zhuang of the Han Dynasty dreamed of a golden god with a radiant body flying into the palace and court, which was very pleasing. The next day, Emperor Ming summoned his ministers to inquire about the dream, and a minister, Fu Yi, replied: “On the eighth day of the fourth month of the twenty-fourth year of King Zhao of the Zhou Dynasty, the mountains shook and the rivers flooded, and five colors of light appeared in the western sky at night. Tai Shi Su speculated that this was the birth of a great sage in the western sky. This sage came to earth to save the suffering, and his righteousness will be introduced to our country in one thousand years. Now that the time is almost a thousand years, I have heard that there is a divine person in the West, whose name is ‘Buddha’, and it is probably Buddha that Your Majesty dreamed about.”
In order to understand the situation of “Buddha”, Emperor Ming sent 12 people to the western region to search for Buddha and seek Dharma. These 12 people went through all the hardships and arrived at the Great Moon Kingdom in the Western Region. There, Buddhism was prevalent and there were many monasteries. The group then collected some Buddhist scriptures and statues and invited the senior monks of Tianzhu, Regent Morten and Zhu Fanfan, to give teachings in the Central Plains.
In the tenth year of Yongping (67 AD), their group returned to Luoyang. Emperor Ming was so happy that he specially summoned the two monks and then invited them to stay in Honglu Temple in the morning of the diplomatic office to translate the Buddhist scriptures they brought back. In the next year, Emperor Ming issued an edict to build a monastery outside Yongmen in Luoyang. The original meaning of the word “temple” was an official office, but since Jemoten and Zhu Fan were in the official office when they first came, and they were foreign guests, they were still called the new residence as a temple to show their courtesy. Since then, Chinese Buddhist buildings have been called “temple”.
In addition, because when Yongping took the scriptures, it was a white horse that carried back the scriptures and Buddha statues, in order to commemorate the merits of the white horse, the monastery was named “White Horse Temple”.
There are two stone horses sculptured at the entrance of the temple, which were originally carved in the round for the tomb of Wei Xianxin, the General of the Right Guard and the Horse Captain of the Song Dynasty, and then moved here.
Splendid White Horse Temple
The two monks, Jemoteng and Zhuran, translated the scriptures and transmitted the Dharma in the White Horse Temple, and together they translated the earliest Chinese sutra, the Forty-two Chapters Sutra. After the death of Regent Moten, Zhu Fan continued to translate some more sutras. The translated sutra scrolls were treasured in the main hall for monks to worship.
During the Northern Wei Dynasty, among the temples in Luoyang, the White Horse Temple had the most prosperous incense. According to the legend, when the monks were worshiping the sutras, the scrolls suddenly emitted a multicolored light, illuminating the hall. What is even more amazing is that the image of Buddha appeared in the flame of light.
During the time of Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty, the temple was in its prime, with more than a thousand monks. During the An Shi Rebellion and the destruction of Buddha in Huichang, Baima Temple was greatly damaged, presenting the “broken monuments and remnants of the temple”. The temple was restored by Emperor Taizong of Song Dynasty, and repaired by Jiajing of Ming Dynasty and Kangxi of Qing Dynasty.
The Chinese Communist Party Faked to Fool Sihanouk
The temple was gradually depressed during the Republican period, but a large number of clay sculptures from the Liao Dynasty and dry lacquer statues from the Yuan Dynasty, such as the Three Buddhas, the Two Heavenly Generals and the Eighteen Luohan, were still well preserved. The clay sculpture of the Eighteen Luohan, the Bayesian Sutra brought by Indian monks 2,000 years ago, and the Buddha statues and sutra scrolls including the rare treasure of jade horses were destroyed, and the temple was almost burned down.
In 1972, Sihanouk, who came from Cambodia to take refuge in China, wished to visit the White Horse Temple. In order to prevent him from seeing the temple in disrepair and to cover up the barbarity and evil of the Cultural Revolution, Zhou Enlai, then Premier of the Communist Party of China, ordered that many cultural relics, such as the Bay Leaf Sutra from the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Eighteen Luohan of the Qing Dynasty from Biyun Temple in the Beijing suburb of Xiangshan, and the Buddha statue of Luohan in the Kang Shou Palace in Cining Palace of the Forbidden City in Beijing, be transported to the White Horse Temple, and allowed these relics to be permanently preserved in Baima Temple. This is the reason why there are many Ming and Qing relics in Baima Temple nowadays.
Conclusion
It was not until 1983 that Baima Temple was restored to its original religious use, but the statues and relics that had been burned were simply irretrievable, and what happened to Baima Temple is just a microcosm of the millions of temples and Taoist temples across the country. The Chinese Communist Party has spared no effort in persecuting religions and fighting against traditional beliefs and cultures, with the fundamental goal of making the world believe in the “atheistic” Chinese Communist Party and thus maintaining its power. However, as the evils of the CCP are being exposed, the CCP regime is on the road to disintegration.
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