Famen Temple
National Key Cultural Relic Protection Unit; Holds A Finger Bone Relic Of The Buddha · Baoji, Shaanxi
The temple that holds a finger bone of the Buddha, and one of the strangest juxtapositions in Chinese religious architecture. Famen was a Tang imperial temple, and its pagoda contained a sealed crypt that nobody opened for over a thousand years. In 1981 the old brick pagoda collapsed in heavy rain; clearing the rubble in 1987, archaeologists found the crypt intact beneath it, packed with the finest Tang treasure ever recovered - gilt silver reliquaries nested one inside another, glass from the Islamic world, and the rarest secret-colour Yue celadon, along with four finger-bone relics, one of them identified as the Buddha's own. The temple grew around that discovery. Beside the restored Tang pagoda and the old halls there is now a vast modern complex: a kilometre-long ceremonial avenue lined with giant Buddha statues, leading to the Namaste Dagoba, a hundred-and-fifty-metre structure shaped like two hands pressed together, which houses the relic. The bone itself is shown only on set days in the lunar calendar and on public holidays.
Famen Town, Fufeng County, Baoji, Baoji, Shaanxi, China
Daily, about 8:30-17:30 with ticket sales stopping around 17:00 (sources differ); the Buddha's finger relic is displayed only on the first and fifteenth of the lunar month, at public holidays and at the Buddha's Birthday and Laba festivals, roughly 10:00-16:00.