“Jokhang” means the temple of Buddha. The temple is located in the center of Lhasa and is the most important Buddhist temple in Tibet Autonomous Region.
It was originally built for the sacred image of Buddha that was brought to Tibet in the seventh century with Princess Wencheng whom married to King Songtsen Gampo of Tibet at the time.
Since then the Buddha image became the holiest object of refuge for all the pilgrims from all over Tibet as well as people from other parts of China. Traditionally, the annual great prayer festival is held here and people circle around it repeatedly day by day.
Today, it is not only the most importantly religious place, but is also the most attractive tourist site.
The most significant chapel is the Shakyamuni chapel. Therefore here please let me give you some brief introduction about this holy statue.
Shakyamuni（释迦牟尼） was the greatest, kindest and the holiest teacher whom had come to this world. He was born as a prince in India more than 2500 years ago. During his childhood, he lived in a very luxurious life, and was well educated and became expert in many worldly fields. Later, he married to Yasodhara and they had one child named Rahula. After seeing the suffering of this world, he decided to leave the kingdom and go to a remote and quiet forest area to find the truth of life. He was disciplined by many Hindu teachers at that time,. But he didn’t have the answer he had been looking for. Eventually, he practiced alone under a buddhi tree about 6 years and he found or realized the truth or enlightenment. At first he only gave his teachings to a few disciples, but time past, his teachings spread out to many other Asian countries. Since then, people started calling him Buddha which means the enlightened one. And his teaching is known as Buddhism.
This holy statue of him in front of us was made during his life-time and it was offered to one Chinese emperor, but later it was brought to Tibet when Princess Wencheng married to King Songtsen Gampo of Tibet. Since then, it has become the most important statue in Tibet.
Tibetans offer the name “Jowo” to the crowned ones and the one without crown is simply called “Buddha”or “Shakyamuni”. Every pilgrim touches the knee of the Jowo by his or her forehead and makes whatever prayers and wishes for their friends and even for their friends’ friends. Pilgrims from remotest areas are asked to take ceremonial scarves by their village forks to offer to the Jowo with their orally transferred on the ceremonial scarves previously as if “inscribe” or sending messages to the Jowo.
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发表于 2011-4-26 21:33
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