Tibetan Buddhist heritage in the Forbidden City
- By Zhang Xue & staff reporter Li Yuan
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E-mail China Today, June 22, 2017
The Forbidden City (aka the Palace Museum) is home to the former imperial palace, official residence of the emperor, his family, and entourage during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911). The museum now houses 42,000 religious artifacts, 80 percent of which are related to Tibetan Buddhism. This rich collection witnessed the height of Tibetan Buddhism in China.
Mysterious Yuhua Pavilion
The Forbidden City is one of the world's largest and best-preserved wooden buildings. Every day tens of thousands of visitors flock to see its famous halls, but there are some areas of the complex that remain closed to the public and still retain a trace of mystery.
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A gold-ground famille-rose sacrificial utensil with a lotus flower design and "eight treasures" pattern. |
In the northwest corner of the Forbidden City lies Zhongzheng Hall, a cluster of 10 Tibetan Buddhist halls arranged along a north-south axis. These include Baohua Hall, Yuhua Pavilion, and Fanzong Tower. None of these buildings is open to the public.
Yuhua Pavilion was first built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). In 1749, when Qing Emperor Qianlong decided to renovate the building, the third generation of Changkya Khutuktu, a prominent Tibetan Buddhist and imperial consultant, advised that it be modeled after the Mandala Tower at Tholing Monastery in Ngari, western Tibet.
Although it appears to be a three-story building, Yuhua Pavilion actually has four floors and is the only structure in the Imperial Palace complex to combine Han and Tibetan design elements. The Buddha statues on the fourth floor represent four different levels of religious practice.
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Part of a Sakyamuni Buddha statue. |
"The arrangement of historical artifacts in the pavilion remains the same as it was in Emperor Qianlong's reign (1736-1796) and Emperor Jiaqing's reign (1796-1820)," noted Luo Wenhua, director of the Institute of Tibetan Buddhist Heritage at the Palace Museum. "The specific date and position of each item is recorded in the museum's files," he said.
Warm winter sunshine filters through the huge red doors onto the rosewood Buddhist pagoda on the ground floor of Yuhua Pavilion. Above the door hangs a tablet with an inscription by Emperor Qianlong.
According to Luo Wenhua, inside the rosewood pagoda are Buddha statues presented as tributes to the emperors by generations of Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. The pavilion also houses enamel mandalas of the three most important images of Buddha in Tantric Buddhism, as well as many gold and copper Buddha statues, instruments used in rituals, miniature porcelain pagodas and Thangka paintings. While some of these treasures were sourced from Tibet, India, and Nepal by Tibetan and Mongolian leaders and given as tributes to the Qing emperors, other artifacts were made by craftsmen from the imperial household.
Most of the Thangka paintings were created nearly 300 years ago, around 1750, when the pavilion was first renovated. Heavy curtains prevent the sun from fading their colors. Under torchlight, the bright mineral pigments in the paint are still vibrant. "Those Thangka paintings have always hung there," marveled Luo, "but they remain as fresh as ever." Of the 1,970 paintings in the Palace Museum most were created by Tibetan painters during the reign of Emperor Qianlong.
Some large-scale wooden structures and porcelain pagodas have been equipped with an earthquake-proofing base, but most relics remain untouched. The pavilion is so crowded with artifacts that there is no room for visitors, which is why the pavilion has not been opened to the public. It has, however, been included in the "Digital Palace Museum" tour project and will be vividly displayed to the public using the virtual reality technology.
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A sitting statue of Bodhisattva Maitreya. |
Luo also advises visitors interested in Tibetan Buddhist artifacts to visit the recently renovated Xianruo Hall in the gardens of Cining Palace (Palace of Benevolent Peace). The hall was where the empress dowager and imperial concubines went to worship the Buddha after the emperor had died.
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