Chapter 10 The second section is solemn

Buddhist temples and Buddha statues are the concrete manifestation of the Buddhist kingdom in the real secular world.Arranging all kinds of treasures, treasure vessels, miscellaneous flowers and treasure covers, streamers, and pillars to decorate the solemn and clean halls, and using solemn statues such as necklaces, rings, cassocks or heavenly clothes also belong to the scope of solemnity.These decorative props, especially those used in halls, are called alamkara-upavicara. In a broad sense, the various images carved on the walls and columns of the hall (especially the decorative paintings), and the offering utensils in front of the statues can all be regarded as part of the solemnity.However, narrowly speaking, the "solemn utensils" in modern Buddhist temples only refer to the following three types of utensils:

1. Niche [kan journal] and account; 2. The genus of streamers, buildings, and canopies; 3. Tables, table curtains, and table furrows. Described below.Firstly, the category of niches and tents. The niche was originally a small stone chamber in the grottoes of the South Asian subcontinent. It is said that the Buddha can dwell, meditate, and enter meditation in it.Of course, monks can also imitate it and meditate in a niche that can be inhabited as part of their daily study and life.There are many such meditation caves in the early large grottoes in China.Of course, many more are for Buddha statues.When worshiping Buddha statues in temples, they often imitated the practice of grottoes, and covered the Buddha statues with a solemn niche, which was later called "Buddhist niches".

In ancient China, let's say it was the Han Dynasty, the furniture used for storage was mainly "kitchen" and "cabinet (chamber)".Regarding these two kinds of furniture, there are detailed descriptions on pages 217-219 of the book "Illustration of Material and Cultural Materials of the Han Dynasty" (published by Cultural Relics Press in September 1991) written by my college president Mr. Sun Ji. Interested readers are welcome to refer to I won't go into details.What I want to say is that the shape of the kitchen is roof-shaped, like a small house with four short legs and two doors; the cabinet is like a modern box with short legs.None of them are for display.Therefore, Emperor Liang Jianwen of the Southern Dynasties criticized the practice of storing Buddha statues in his article "And Seng Zhengjiao" (contained in Volume 16 of "Guang Hongming Collection"), saying: "...the temples in this land are only about to be born. On the day, the images are temporarily listed, and since then, they have been sealed in a box [qie si steal four]...or ten statues and five sages live in one kitchen, or the Tathagata Tathagata all hide in one cabinet. Faith can be described as heart and matter, appearance Right and wrong..." It can be seen that the kitchen and cabinets are for collection rather than public worship.Of course, the niches for worshiping Buddha in Sinicized Buddhism may refer to the shape of the kitchen when they were built.So that later—for example, during the Song and Yuan dynasties—the shrine was also commonly called the kitchen, or "cook", which is still called by Japanese Buddhist circles today, but not in China. It is called a shrine in modern times, and it is often called a Buddhist shrine. .

There are many kinds of Buddhist niches in modern times. Generally speaking, they are like a small house with a door open in front, often without a door.Modern niches are often a large glass cover, like a display cabinet.The ornately decorated niches can be specially called "Ge" and are often exquisite handicrafts of traditional Chinese small woodwork.Huge statues cannot be placed in niches, so there are no niches for enshrining them.Regardless of whether a niche is added or not, a large curtain in the shape of a door is often hung in front of the Buddha and Bodhisattva statues. This kind of curtain is called "Huanmen".The Huanmen is often embroidered with colored silk into flying apsaras, lotus flowers, auspicious animals and rare birds, exotic flowers and herbs.In front of Huanmen, a glazed lamp is often hung in the sky to worship Buddha, which is commonly known as "eternal lamp".Banners are usually hung on both sides of Huanmen, so it is also called "Fanmen".

There is a special kind of niche, commonly known as "Hua Pavilion", which should be discussed here.The flower pavilion of Sinicized Buddhism is a small square pavilion with a specific purpose: it is specially used to house the "incarnated Buddha", that is, the newly born Sakyamuni Buddha.The characteristics of this Buddha statue are: standing upright, pointing to the sky with one hand and pointing to the ground with the other.The upper body is naked, and a handkerchief is tucked in the lower body (there are also naked ones, which are often worshiped in non-Sinicized Buddhism).Most of them are metal statues, with a plate under the body, and the plate is often cast together.The birth date of Shakyamuni Buddha is set on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month in Chinese Buddhism, and on the fifteenth day of the fourth month in Tibetan Buddhism.On that day, the ceremony of "Buddha Bathing" will be carried out. The main tasks are to tie up the flower pavilion, invite the birth Buddha in, and carry the Buddha in a parade.Due to the waste of people and money, blocking traffic and hindering the maintenance of law and order, in mainland China, this ceremony has long ceased to be acceptable.The Dai Buddhism in Yunnan, which belongs to the Southern Buddhism system, set the Buddha's birthday ten days after the Ching Ming Festival, and developed it into the national festival "Water-Splashing Festival".That is something that needs to be discussed elsewhere.There are two more things to say about the flower pavilion: First, a small plaque is often hung on the pavilion, which says "Pilan Garden" or "Yicheng Hall". "Pilan Garden" is the abbreviated abbreviation in Chinese for the joint Chinese abbreviation of Kapilavastu, the father's country of Sakyamuni Buddha, and Lumbini Garden, his birthplace in his mother country. "Yicheng" is the abbreviation of "All Yicheng" which is the free translation of the name "Siddhartha" of Sakyamuni Buddha when he was the prince.The second is that the flowers on the flower pavilion were originally collected by monks in the wild, but the monks picked them several times, more or less, and fights broke out.Later, it was generally changed to everyone tying artificial flowers by hand.

By the way, the coffin where the monk's body is placed after the relocation is specially called "spiritual niche", also called niche for short, and also known as niche coffin, niche coffin, niche, niche boat, etc.That is another kind of niche, not to be confused with Buddhist niches.Regarding the funeral of the monk's family, we shall write another article about it. Curtains are used to block and divide space in Buddhist halls.It is usually made of stitched long cloth strips.Those with vertical slits are called curtains, and those with horizontal slits are called curtains.Collectively referred to as curtains or curtains.It is generally hung up and used when performing rituals.

Let’s talk about the genus of banners, buildings, and covers. The Sanskrit word Ketu, transliterated as "Jidu", originally means the ninth day in the Sanskrit "Nine Luminaries Calendar", which roughly refers to an imaginary comet.It is also the star of the flag of the South Asian Subcontinent, which has various animals painted on it, which means the restraint of the three armies.The majestic signs used by the Buddhists also have various representative imprints of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, which symbolizes resisting and destroying all demon armies with the banner of wisdom, so they are used in halls to praise the morality of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and show the solemnity of Buddhism.In terms of its shape, there are two types.

One is long piece shape, called Pataka in Sanskrit, transliterated as "Po Duojia", and free translated as streamer.The banners in the Sinicized Buddhist temples are generally long strips of silk cloth.It consists of four parts: a triangular flag head on the top, and a rectangular flag body connected to the bottom; under the flag head, on both sides of the flag body, there are two thin strips about 2/3 of the flag body, called flag hands; Under the body, there are several thin strips or ribbons, which are called flag feet.Most of the banners are painted with images.In a big difference, there are those who paint images of Buddha, Bodhisattva, and heavenly kings, which are called painted banners; those who write "seeds (kinds of characters)" instead of paintings are called seed banners; Those who hold objects and seals (handprints, etc.) are called Samaya (transliteration of Sanskrit Samaya, which means "fundamental purpose" and "vow"). Symbols displayed for sexual vows".There are also scriptures and mantras written on the streamers.A simplified streamer is popular in modern and contemporary Sinicized Buddhist temples: the main part of the streamer body is a lotus flower, to show the meaning of "lotus flower incarnation".Between the head of the flag and the body of the flag, and under the body of the flag, each is connected with long silk cloth strips, generally three strips at the top and four strips at the bottom.Among the above three strips, the middle one is wider, representing the upper part of the streamer body. It is mostly white or light yellow and other light colors, and the names of various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are often written on it.The top two on the left and right are considered to be flag hands, and the bottom four are also considered to be flag feet.The colors of these strips are often the same, and apricot yellow, red and other colors darker than the body of the flag are often used.

The colors of the flags are various, which can be roughly divided into two types: monochromatic and colored.Monochromatic, but also in various colors.In color, Tantra uses five-color flags, which are divided into green, yellow, red, white and black. Sinicized Buddhism combines them with the local Yin-Yang and five-element thoughts, which are said to represent the five elements and the five internal organs.Making offerings with this flag can enable the donor to support the five internal organs and prolong life, so it is called the longevity flag.There is also a kind of empowerment banner in Tantric Buddhism, which is used when performing empowerment rituals in secret. It is characterized by a long and narrow body and short hands (only about 1/4 of the body of the banner) and has multiple strips.

Banners can be used both inside and outside Buddhist temples.It comes in a variety of forms.Ancient monks prayed for rain and often set up a kind of flag called "tingfan" in the courtyard. The characteristic is that the body of the flag is often connected in a multi-layered square shape, and each layer has a flag handle.There are also recommended death banners, which are used to recruit the souls of the dead and make them tend to the Western Pure Land; funeral banners, also known as "four banners", are used in the funeral procession, often paper banners, and burn them after they are beaten. The "four roots" refer to "the four truths of birth, residence, change, and extinction."To put it figuratively in Su Dongpo's poem, it is: "Go and come in a snap of your fingers!"

There is also a kind of "Hungry Ghost Banner", as the name suggests, it is used in religious affairs, and the paper banner is burned after use. In short, banners are the most important among the solemn tools, and they are used in the most places. Sanskrit Dhvaja, transliterated as "Packed Ruo", free translation as "Building".It is a long tube-shaped flag, which can be called "Jidu" together with the streamer, but the shape is different.Stone buildings are often octagonal, and those planted on the ground, commonly known as "baleng steles", have the same origin as this, so I will not describe them in another article.Let’s talk about the silk building hanging in the hall, which is a long tube of stitched circles or polyhedrons.Most of them are embroidered scriptures.There are not many uses outside the hall, because the permanent stone buildings are erected in the courtyard, so there is no need to hang them.When parading inside and outside the temple, sometimes they form groups with the banners and make several pairs to demonstrate. Sanskrit Chattra, translated as "cover".It was originally a non-foldable umbrella for the South Asian subcontinent to shelter from the sun and rain.There are two types: one is that the handle is in the center of the umbrella body, which is the same as the modern umbrella, but it cannot be folded; It is called hanging cover or canopy.It is often applied on the top of the head of the venerable to show respect.In Sinicized Buddhist monasteries, a sky cover is used on the zenith where Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are located, especially called a treasure cover. Two forms are commonly used: one is to turn the ceiling into a treasure cover. There are many national treasure-level handicrafts in this permanent treasure cover. It is worth noting that ancient Chinese architects treated religious and non-religious buildings equally, calling them "caissons" and "Dragon Wells" for those decorated with dragon shapes.The other is made of silk cloth for hanging.In paintings such as murals and paper and silk paintings, treasure covers are often hung in the air, leaning on them in the air, showing a supernatural posture and volleying momentum. Finally, briefly talk about the table surround (curtain) and table burden.They are tablecloths laid on altars or altars in halls.It's just that the former is long and the latter is short.The outward side of them often hangs down to the table legs, and there are mascots, patterns, etc. embroidered on them, and there are also words such as Buddha's name and mantra written on them.Its intention is mainly to show solemnity.Laying for cleanliness is the rest.The exquisite altar table made of traditional Chinese fine woodworking carving, inlaying, and tenon joints has a very solemn posture, so there is no need to add curtains. The solemn furniture in Buddhist temples is roughly as described above.