The Bone that Changed China
One Bone Is Responsible for Multiple Self-immolations and Changing Chinese History
The Famen Buddhist Temple (in what is now Shaanxi Province) has been an important center for Buddhism since it was built almost 1,500 years ago. The temple is particularly famed for housing a finger bone of the Buddha. This religious relic has the reputation of producing miraculous cures, so several times during the Tang dynasty it was brought to the royal palace when the emperor or empress was ill. During one such procession, the bone was said to have restored sight and hearing to the blind and deaf along its route. (The veneration of body parts of saints and their supposed ability to produce miracles is also a part of the Catholic tradition in the West.)
One of the greatest of Chinese Buddhist philosophers was the monk Fazang, who is best known today for his sophisticated essays and dialogues. Less well known is that at the age of 16 he made a pilgrimage to Famen Temple, and was so inspired by the bone of the Buddha that he set fire to his own finger as an offering to it. After becoming a leading figure in Chinese Buddhism, Fazang enthusiastically supported the orthodoxy and piety of self-immolation, disagreeing with more moderate Buddhists who regarded stories of bodily mutilation as metaphorical or simply upāya (myths used for pedagogic purposes).
Two generations after Fazang, the emperor ordered that the bone of the Buddha be temporarily brought from Famen Temple to the palace, so he could venerate it in person. This provoked the Confucian scholar Han Yu to write a famous essay, “Memorandum on a Bone of the Buddha,” which discouraged the emperor from practicing Buddhism. One of Han Yu’s objections to Buddhism was that it encouraged unnatural acts of bodily mutilation. (We can see from the example of Fazang that this charge is not without merit.) For Confucians like Han Yu, self-immolation was not only unnatural but also a violation of filial piety, because it intentionally damaged the body one received from one’s parents. Han Yu’s essay would later become a seminal document in Neo-Confucianism, the movement that revitalized and revolutionized Confucianism. However, during Han Yu’s lifetime it only got him exiled by the emperor (who was an ardent Buddhist).
The monk Zongmi was sufficiently annoyed by Han Yu that he wrote On the Origin of Humanity, a polemical work arguing for the superiority of Buddhism to Confucianism and Daoism. Zongmi was also, like Fazang, a supporter of religious self-mutilation, and lavishly praised a man who was so inspired by one of Zongmi’s public lectures that the man cut part of his own arm off as an offering.
Famen Temple was temporarily closed in 845 CE as part of the Buddhist Persecution carried out under Emperor Wuzong. Perhaps surprisingly, it was not the Confucians who instigated Wuzong’s anti-Buddhist crusade, but the Daoists. When Buddhism first came from India during the first century CE, relations between Buddhists and Daoists were cordial. The two religions often saw important parallels between each other’s teachings, and some even speculated that Laozi, the legendary founder of Daoism, was the same person as the Buddha. However, Buddhism and Daoism later became increasingly sectarian (perhaps because they were competing with one another for the support of the general populace and the government). Consider an incident from the classic Chinese novel, Journey to the West. In one chapter, the three protagonists (the monk Xuanzang, the Monkey King, and Pigsy, an anthropomorphic monk-pig) use magic to liberate a city of Buddhists who are enslaved by evil Daoists.
The Buddhist Persecution ended with the death of Emepror Wuzong a year later, but Buddhism in China never regained the level of influence it had among intellectuals and rulers. Neo-Confucianism, inspired by the writings of anti-Buddhists like Han Yu, came to dominate intellectually and politically. Nonetheless, Buddhism remained an important popular religion, and Famen Temple continued to be active until the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. In accordance with Marx’s teaching that “religion is the opiate of the masses,” the practice of Buddhism was discouraged under communism. Although the Famen Temple itself was nominally protected by law as a historical site, it was ransacked by members of the paramilitary Red Guard at the beginning of the ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). In an effort to protect the religious artifacts from the Red Guards, the abbot of the temple, Liangqing, immolated himself at the entrance to the True Relic Pagoda.
When Mao Zedong died in 1976, the Cultural Revolution came to an end, and a much more moderate government assumed power. China’s contemporary rulers are largely supportive of tradition (as a way of encouraging nationalism). As a result, Famen temple is one of many historical sites that have been restored. The Chinese government also encourages capitalistic economic development, like tourism, so the grounds of Famen Temple have been enlarged to host the crowds who visit the temple (including close to 100,000 tourists on the first day of Chinese New Year alone). Fortunately for tourism (and Buddhism), Liangqing’s self-sacrifice was apparently successful, because when the True Relic Pagoda was restored in 1987, the finger bone of the Buddha was rediscovered. For those who would like to worship the bone, admission to the temple is ¥28, while admission to the museum is ¥45.
The colorful history of Famen Temple and the alleged finger bone of the Buddha (allegedly rediscovered in 1987) is fascinating in its own right, and helps to illustrate the complex interplay of religion, politics, economics, and philosophy down to the present day. Who knew that one bone could be at the center of so much conflict?