The most important trip of this trip is to visit Suzhou Museum. In this new Suzhou Museum designed by Master I.M. Pei, more than 30,000 cultural relics will dazzle you, the most striking of which are the unearthed cultural relics of Ruiguang Temple Tower and Yunyan Temple Tower, which are known as the "treasures of the two towers". More than 30 years ago, in that spring, the Buddha treasure that had been dusty for thousands of years reappeared in the world.
There is a thousand-year-old pagoda named Ruiguang Pagoda in Panmen, southwest of Suzhou City. Sun Quan was in Suzhou during the Three Kingdoms period. In order to welcome Kangju monk Kang Xing to Suzhou, Ruiguang Temple was built. In 247 AD, Sun Quan built thirteen pagodas in this temple to repay his mother's kindness. During the Five Dynasties and the Jin Dynasty, the pagoda was rebuilt and a bronze medal was placed at the top. In the first year of Jingdezhen in the Northern Song Dynasty (1004), it was rebuilt into a seven-story and eight-faced brick wooden pavilion tower, which was named "Ruiguang Temple". Over the past 1000 years, the temple tower has been burned by war and destroyed and repaired many times. From the tenth year of Xianfeng in Qing Dynasty (1860) to the second year of Tongzhi (1863), since the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War, the temple was completely destroyed, leaving only one tower. 1978, a wooden letter with a height exceeding 1 m was found in the Ruiguang Tower. This wooden letter was found by accident.
1978 April 12, three local primary school students used the summer vacation to meet and play in the Ruiguang Tower. At that time, the Ruiguang Tower was unguarded, and several primary school students went to the pagoda. When they came to the third floor of the stupa, several birds were flying under the eaves, and then they found the nest near the eaves. Several people talked about digging out the eggs together, but they accidentally bumped into a loose brick in the tower. They opened the heavy brick niche and found a dark hole below. Black holes can allow a person to enter, and children can't help but feel a little scared. But driven by curiosity, several students still entered the black hole. In the darkroom in the cave, they found a "black box" with a height of more than 1 m, and a national treasure relic that has been sleeping for thousands of years-the Pearl relic building was rediscovered.
The cultural relics experts who heard the news opened the "black box", which contained a letter made of ginkgo wood, and the images of the four kings were painted on all sides. Painted wood has a height of 124 cm and is made of ginkgo wood. On the inner wall of the wooden letter is written "Lucky Symbol for the Six Years of Middle and Old Age", which is 10 13. The wooden letter is exquisite, and cultural relics experts can know it at a glance. However, when the wooden letter was opened, the cultural relics experts present were shocked. What kind of rare treasure is the real treasure hidden in this wooden letter? I'll talk about this later, but let's take a look at this big box with four heavenly kings painted on it first.
It is no exaggeration to say that you will understand the idiom "buy a gift and return the pearl" after reading the inner letter of the four heavenly kings painted by ginkgo wood.
There are painted statues of the four great kings in the mural on the exterior wall, which are even in proportion and rich in color. The facial expressions of the characters are exaggerated and vivid, magnificent and realistic. In painting and coloring, they all inherited the painting style of Wu Daozi School in Tang Dynasty. Their brushwork is like flowing water, and their pen and ink are vigorous and powerful. With the Liu Yemiao method, the lines are smooth and changeable, and the clothes reveal the meaning of "Five Dynasties should be the wind". The color is slightly dyed and the painting is light. The picture is mainly sketching, and the color of the board is the main body of the character. The green and white perlite is only used to color things outside the body, such as clothing, armor, weapons, etc., resulting in a thick, beautiful and quaint color effect. The artist's superb skills have brought the whole painting to a near-perfect state.
The four heavenly kings depicted in this wooden letter are all brave warriors. Among them, Dorothy, the king of the East, rested on her hips in her right hand and held a sword in her left hand. His back is straight, his eyes are wide open and his mouth is tightly closed, which seems to make him jump and attack.
Peliuber, the king of wide eyes in the west, wore a phoenix helmet, held a fork axe, bent his bow upright, screamed in anger and flew up as if to meet and punish the enemy.
Pi Liuli, the king of growth in the south, stood on his left with a spear in his left hand, waved his right hand, roared to the crown, and his eyes were wide open;
In the north, Vishnu, the heavenly king, is often heard, with a solemn face, holding a stupa in his hand, surrounded by auspicious clouds, his eyes staring, and his lips and teeth slightly parted, as if he were chanting.
The four heavenly kings, East, West, North and South, are magnificent and show infinite power. At their feet, they all stepped on two witches. Some of these evil spirits shoulder their shoulders on their heads, some kneel down to shoulder heavy burdens, or are tame, deceitful, violent or arrogant, with different postures and expressions, which further highlights the majestic spirit of the four heavenly kings. Although the wooden letter color painting is only1.24cm long, the figures are vivid and have both form and spirit. Different from the woodcut "Da Sui Wen Dalagni", the statues of the heavenly king painted in the four corners of Buddhist scriptures have the same shape.
Although the inner wooden letters of the four heavenly kings have been painted for thousands of years, they are still colorful and magnificent. It's just that the box is so precious and rare, you can imagine how rare the baby inside is. It's time to reveal the treasures of Suzhou Museum.
When several experts opened the exquisite "box" and saw the contents of the wooden letter, they were all shocked. In the wooden letter is the treasure among treasures-the relic building in Zhu Zhen in the Northern Song Dynasty, which is a container for storing relics. Exquisite modeling, precious materials and exquisite craftsmanship are all rare in the world.
The main body of the treasure house is nanmu, which is divided into three parts: Sumeru, Buddhist Temple and Temple.
Mount Sumi is octagonal, symbolizing eight directions in Buddhism. It is divided into three layers, including base, Xumi Sea and Xumi Mountain. There are eight little silver lions with different expressions around the base, which are vivid in shape. Mount Sumi depicts a treasure-like pattern tied with branches, with a waist in the middle and a wooden golden fence around it.
What is carved in the railing is the Sumeru mountain and sea, and a swell column is held up in the rough waves, which is Sumeru Mountain. Nine-headed dragon with a gold and silver thread wrapped around the surge column. Legend has it that it is the symbol of the Dragon King, in charge of human drought and flood. The African claws and beards woven with gold thread are clearly visible.
Around the sea, eight golden woodcarving clouds rise. The "Four Heavenly Kings" stood in the clouds, armed with all kinds of weapons, with extraordinary momentum, while the "Four Heavenly Women" standing beside them were gentle and beautiful, and Anna was colorful.
On the Mount Sumi, which was held up, there are eight woodcarving guards with different postures, who are crony and give people smart beauty. What the gods guard is the main part of the treasure building-the Buddhist temple.
In the center of the Buddhist temple stands a sapphire octagonal scripture building, on which four characters of truth, grass, official script and seal script are engraved in Sanskrit "There is no Maha Prajna Paramita in the South", which means "great wisdom and wisdom can reach the other side of the paradise". It can be guessed that the secret of the treasure house is in this scripture house.
The building is hollow, with two carved Buddhist scriptures of Dalagni and a light blue gourd-shaped porcelain bottle containing nine Buddhist relics.
There are eight pillars outside the Buddhist temple, which bear the top and corner of the octagonal arch beam house. The niche is covered with an octagonal beaded canopy of gold and silver thread, and the canopy is covered with eight dragons woven with gold and silver thread as ridges, diving with their heads held high, representing the eight dragon kings. The octagonal flowers are decorated with pearls, coral pearls and agates. There is also a Qi Dan Buddhist shrine at the top of the temple, which is made of a gold vase with a narrow neck. The surface of the vase is embossed with Guanyin and the boy, with moiré on all sides as the bottom and a flying phoenix in the middle.
Above the canopy is a gate, made of white jade, crystal and gold and silver. Eight silver chains hang down from the brakes and connect with the octagon of the canopy. The top of the brake is a large crystal ball with a diameter of 3.4 cm, surrounded by a silver flame halo, which means "Buddha's light shines".
At this point, the whole treasure house was decorated with dazzling colors, which made people linger.
The beautiful shapes, precious materials and exquisite craftsmanship of Zhu Zhen site buildings are rare in the world. Producers choose precious materials such as crystal, agate, amber, pearl, sandalwood, gold and silver according to the "seven treasures" mentioned in Buddhism.
In the production process, more than ten kinds of special techniques, such as jade carving, gold and silver thread weaving, gold and silver leather carving, sandalwood carving, crystal carving, Qi Diao, gold painting, bead piercing and ancient painting, were adopted, which condensed the wisdom and painstaking efforts of many skilled craftsmen. This is a rare and precious religious work.
Seventeen carved statues were even more outstanding in the technology of the producers at that time. The height of each Buddha statue is less than 65,438+00 cm, so it is extremely difficult to carve. The majestic expression of the heavenly king, the graceful appearance of the heavenly daughter, the angry expression of Lux and the solemn expression of the Buddha are all beautifully carved, which can be described as exquisite.
From the real pearl relic buildings, people can see the prosperity and exquisiteness of Suzhou arts and crafts in the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty, as well as the high aesthetic standards and rich cultural connotations of Wu people in the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty.
Because this real jewelry building is too expensive, it was not exhibited in Suzhou Museum, but was hidden in the safe in the basement. According to a person who has seen the layered assembly of the real jewelry building, this real jewelry building is inlaid with more than 40 thousand pearls, which can be preserved separately. If necessary, they can be assembled one by one to finally form a collection of crystal, agate, amber, pearl, sandalwood, gold and gold.
1978 In the second half of the year, Suzhou Institute of Arts and Crafts set up a replica group of Zhenzhu relic building. It took nearly a year to successfully copy the Baolou, but the replica still can't reach the level of the original in some crafts, which shows that the exquisite craftsmanship of that year is beyond the reach of contemporary craftsmen.
Unfortunately, when the real treasure house of pearl cultural relics was handed over to cultural relics experts, it was partially damaged. According to the limited information at present, it is impossible to find out who made the treasure house, and it is also impossible to find out which monk the relic enshrined in it belongs to.
Ruiguang Temple Tower, where the treasure was found, was originally named Puji Buddhist Temple. Panmen, located in the southwest of Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, was named after the five-color Buddha light appeared in the tower. The excavation of this real pearl relic building in the Northern Song Dynasty proves that the Ruiguang Pagoda was rebuilt during the period of Northern Song Zhenzong. It also reflects the prosperity and exquisiteness of handicraft technology in Jiangnan area in Song Dynasty, as well as the superb aesthetic level and rich cultural connotation in Song Dynasty.
A number of precious cultural relics from the Five Dynasties and the early Northern Song Dynasty were also found in the brick niche of the tower heart on the third floor of the Ruiguang Pagoda, such as two bronze gilded pagodas in the Five Dynasties, nine Buddha statues of Dizang, Guanyin and Tathagata in the Song Dynasty, and more than 20 volumes of woodcut prints and blue paper gold books 120.
Song mosaic Luodian warp box
The warp box is made of wood and painted with black paint, and the whole body is inlaid with natural colored mother-of-pearl into various patterns, which is elegant and luxurious. There are three flowers on the warp box cover, with a semicircle crystal in the middle and colorful gems. The slopes and edges around are inlaid with Swiss flowers and diamond-shaped rings, with butterflies and bird-shaped cymbals in the middle. The base is sumeru-shaped, with a 16 concave platform door, in which there is a pile of pigments depicting Senecio, which is magnificent. Hokkekyo, a precious book wrapped in blue paper and gold, was carefully stored in this black lacquer mother-of-pearl warp box and reappeared in broad daylight after 1000 years.
Song Dynasty woodblock printing "Miao Fa Hua Lian Jing"
This classic book is written in clay gold, which refers to a clay-like object mixed with mercury and gold powder. The matching paper is blue, which is also called "Bi Paper Jin Shu".
Blue paper is magnetic blue paper, dyed with indigo dye. The production process of this paper is very complicated, and it is necessary to extract indigo from the stems and leaves of Polygonum hydropiper. After long-term fermentation, phenol was released under the action of sugar and dilute acid, and then concentrated into indigo. In the twenty years of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, a piece of magnetic blue paper was worth one or two silver, but at that time, one or two silver could buy two bottles of soju, otherwise it was 10 kg of white flour or 5 kg of nails, and magnetic blue paper was the most expensive paper at that time.
Five generations of copper-plated towers
This tower is square and can be disassembled. The whole tower is carved in Indian style, and each side is engraved with Buddhist stories. Thirty-two stories are engraved on the outside of the leaf-shaped corner of the banana, and the statues of four great kings are separated on the inside.
These treasures unearthed from the Ruiguang Tower are kept in Suzhou Museum. These rediscovered national treasures show the world a glorious history and the wisdom and skills of a generation of craftsmen.
In the next issue, we will continue to talk about another treasure of Suzhou Museum. Welcome everyone to pay attention.