A relic comes to Taiwan
The construction of the Buddha Memorial Center was rooted in the Buddhist belief in relics.
It is said that the Buddha was cremated after he achieved Nirvana, and because of his great compassion, his body turned into fine relics called sarira so that he would leave behind a permanent dharma body for all sentient beings. These included four teeth, one of which was taken to the Heavens by the god Indra. The other three remained in the human realm.
One of the Buddha’s teeth was taken from India to Sri Lanka, and is now held in the Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic. Another was taken to China by the monk Faxian in the Yuanhui reign of the Liu Song Dynasty (473–477 CE). Over a millennium and countless wars later, it is now held in Lingguang Temple in Beijing’s Xishan district.
The third tooth was originally placed in Nalanda Temple in India. In the 13th century, when Muslim invaders took India, it was taken in by the king of Tibet and placed in Namgyal Temple. During the Cultural Revolution, Namgyal Temple was destroyed and the tooth’s whereabouts were unknown. Only later was it revealed that it had been hidden away by one Kunga Dorje Rinpoche.
In order to protect the tooth, Kunga Dorje Rinpoche underwent many hardships. He trekked across the Himalayas, bringing the tooth back to India. There, high Tibetan lamas authenticated it and urged him to build a temple for it so that sentient beings might benefit from revering the body of the Buddha.
In February, 1998, Master Hsing Yun traveled to India to confer precepts. Kunga Dorje Rinpoche felt he had little time left. Seeing that it would be impossible to bring the relic back to Tibet and that he could not find the resources to build another Buddhist temple for it in India, Kunga Dorje Rinpoche hoped to pass the relic on to the reliable Master Hsing Yun for safekeeping.
In April, 1998, the Buddha’s tooth that had been brought from Tibet to India made its way through Bangkok to Fo Guang Shan. Fo Guang Shan started planning the memorial center, and construction began in 2003. It was finally completed in late 2011.
The day the center was completed, monks from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and more than 100,000 believers from all over the world gathered in Taiwan to chant the Heart Sutra in search of world peace.
The underground chambers are temples of the netherworld. After Buddhism was introduced to China, local traditions were reflected in the burial of relics and ritual items such as incense burners and jars. The Buddha Memorial Center features 48 underground chambers, which hold a variety of Buddhist items.