The construction of the Buddha statue began in the early kaiyuan year of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty (AD 7 13). When the Buddha reaches the shoulder, the monk Haitong dies. After Haitong's death, the project was once interrupted. About ten years later, Zhang Qiu and Joan, our envoys from Jianchuan, made donations. Haitong's apprentice led the craftsmen to continue to build the Buddha. Due to the huge project, the court ordered the payment of hemp salt tax, which made the project progress rapidly. When the Leshan Giant Buddha reached his knees, the successors Zhang Qiu and Joan moved to be ministers, and the project stopped again. Forty years later, Wei Gao, the messenger of Jianchuan, donated money to continue the construction of Leshan Giant Buddha. After the efforts of three generations of craftsmen, it was completed in 90 years in the 19th year of Zhenyuan, Tang Dezong (AD 803). Wei Gao began to write the stone statue of Maitreya Buddha in Lingyun Temple in Jiazhou, recording the whole story of the excavation of the giant Buddha. The original monument still exists on the cliff on the right side of the giant Buddha.
Leshan Giant Buddha stands at the confluence of Minjiang River, Dadu River and Qingyi River. For more than 1000 years, Leshan Giant Buddha has read all the spring scenery in the world, and after many dynasties, it is still solemn and kind.
Looking at this statue of Buddha in the Tang Dynasty, we often only see the sculpture of the mountain and the posture of the giant Buddha sitting with his hands on his knees, but we can't really see the structure of the giant Buddha.
Gems are embedded in curly hair.
There are 102 1 buns on the top of the giant Buddha, which are counted with chalk when 1962 is in maintenance. From a distance, the bun is integrated with the head, but in fact it is embedded with stones one by one. The exposed part of the root of a single bun has obvious splicing cracks and no mortar bonding. The surface of the bun is plastered with two layers, the inner layer is lime, and the thickness of each layer is 5-15 mm. During the maintenance period of 199 1 year, three snail stones were found in the depression of the Buddha's right leg, of which two were relatively complete, 78 cm long, 3 1.5×3 1.5 cm at the top and 24×24 cm at the root.
Both ears are made of wood.
There is a hole about 25 cm deep inside the root of the earlobe of the right ear of the giant Buddha. Maintenance workers take out many broken objects from the hole and carefully examine the decaying wood mud. This confirms Fan Chengda's record in Wu in the Southern Song Dynasty that "the Buddha statue in the world is big, but its ears are still wooden". It can be seen that the Buddha's ear, which is 7 meters long, is not carved from original rock, but made of wooden columns and decorated with hammer ash. A hole was also found at the lower end of the Buddha's nose, in which three pieces of wood were exposed, forming a finished glyph. It shows that the protruding bridge of the nose is also lined with wood and decorated with hammer ash. However, it is impossible to verify whether this was the case when Zhenyuan was completed in 19 years, and whether this technology was adopted by future generations to repair it.
The drainage system covers the whole body.
Leshan Giant Buddha has a very ingenious drainage system. There is a cleverly designed and concealed drainage system behind the ear and head of Leshan Giant Buddha, which plays an important role in protecting the Buddha. So that the Buddha statue will not be eroded by rain. Wang Shizhen, a poet in the Qing Dynasty, wrote a poem about Leshan Giant Buddha, "Spring flows in a bun from ancient Buddha". In the bun on the * * *18th floor above the head of the Giant Buddha, there is a horizontal drainage ditch on the 4th, 9th and18th floors respectively, which is decorated with hammer ash, so it can't be seen from afar. Collar and garment line also have pleated drainage ditch, and there is a left-handed disassembled face ditch in the front chest, which is connected with the back ditch of the right arm. Behind the ear, near the cliff, there is a cave with a length of 9. 15m, a width of1.25m and a height of 3.38m; There are two holes at both ends of the chest and back, which are not connected with each other. Right hole depth 16.5m, width 0.95m, height 1.35m, left hole depth 8. 1m, width 0.95m, height1.1m. These wonderful ditches and caves constitute a scientific drainage, moisture-proof and ventilation system, which has played an important role in protecting the giant Buddha and preventing erosive weathering for thousands of years. Due to the confluence of mountain springs, calcareous compounds with a thickness of about 5- 10 cm are condensed on the inner cliff walls of the two caves, while the cliff walls on the Buddha's body side are still red sand and relatively dry. Two caves, the walls of which are separated from each other are wet, and there is water at the bottom, and water keeps dripping out of the caves, so the chest of the giant Buddha is about 2 meters wide. Obviously, this is because the hole has not been penetrated. I wonder why the builder didn't get through.
There is a monument on the box.
According to Huang and Rob, the person in charge of 1962 maintenance, a closed hidden hole was found in the chest of the giant Buddha. When I opened the hole, I saw it was full of scrap iron, worn lead skin, bricks and so on. In fact, Fengmen Stone is a chronicle of the reconstruction of Tianning Pavilion in Song Dynasty. After the completion of the Great Buddha in the Tang Dynasty, a wooden pavilion was built to protect it from the sun and rain. Judging from the numerous column bases and pile holes left by the knees, legs, arms, chest and instep of the giant Buddha, it is obvious that there used to be a giant Buddha pavilion here. Rebuilt in the Song Dynasty, it was called "Tianning Pavilion" and was later destroyed. But I don't know when and for what reason, the Tianning Pavilion Chronicle Monument Tang was embedded in the Buddha's chest. The maintainer moved the monument to Shihai Cave for preservation, but it was destroyed on 1966.
Leshan Giant Buddha is Maitreya Buddha. Maitreya Buddha was enshrined in the Tang Dynasty. According to Buddhist teachings, Maitreya Buddha is the future Buddha of the III Buddha, symbolizing the brightness and happiness of the future world. 5.67 billion years after the death of Buddha Sakyamuni, Maitreya will take the place of Buddha and spread Buddhism under the Longhua tree in Hualin Garden to help all beings. Buddhist scriptures say that Maitreya will be "peaceful in the world" when he is born. During the Wu and Zhou Dynasties, Wu Zetian ordered the fabrication of the Great Cloud Sutra to prove that she was Maitreya's reincarnation. In the feudal era when men were superior to women, people's worship of Maitreya helped her ascend to the throne. Because of Wu Zetian's vigorous advocacy, the wind of sculpting Maitreya Buddha swept the country. The construction of Leshan Giant Buddha was only more than 20 years from the time of Wu Zetian, so when Haitong built Leshan Giant Buddha, he naturally chose Maitreya Buddha, which is a future Buddha that can bring light and happiness, which is consistent with the requirements of Zhenjiang Giant Buddha to quell floods.
Great changes have taken place in the Buddhist culture of Han Dynasty in China. The first stage is the introduction of Jiao Jiao Maitreya from India to China. The second stage is the ancient Buddha Maitreya with "China characteristics"; The third stage is Maitreya. Leshan Giant Buddha is an ancient Buddha Maitreya with "China characteristics". According to the description in the Maitreya Sutra, Maitreya has "thirty-two phases and eighty kinds of goodness", which requires his facial features, head, hands, feet and body to be different from ordinary people. The overall shape of Leshan Giant Buddha is extraordinary. The bun on the head, broad shoulders, tall and long eyebrows and round nostrils are all "broad shoulders and thin waist" of Indian Buddha statues built in accordance with Buddhist classics. There is nothing left on the giant Buddha, only strong shoulders and full breasts, which embodies the fashion of taking fat as beauty in Tang Dynasty. The posture of Leshan Giant Buddha is that his feet droop naturally, which is different from the "knotting" posture of Indian Buddha statues because the giant Buddha was built to save water. This steady and steady sitting posture can give boatmen the courage and determination to overcome rapids and dangerous beaches.
Maitreya Buddha Maitreya Buddha is based on the image of a monk named Qi Ben in China during the Five Dynasties. This is from Fenghua County, Zhejiang Province. He is charitable and can predict the weather and people's good and bad luck. He often begs around with a cloth bag. Before his death, he once said, "Maitreya Buddha is really Maitreya Buddha, incarnating tens of billions, which often shows the world and the world doesn't know." So everyone thinks that he is the incarnation of Maitreya, and Maitreya in the temple has also shaped his image-a cloth-bag monk with a big smile and a big belly.