Riding the wind of rebirth

"In the first year of Tongzhi, Fawang Temple built four gates for defense. In the tenth year of Tongzhi, Fawang Temple was finally completed. Guoshan ordered his juniors, Guoduan and Guoqin, to take advantage of the danger and travel together to march to the capital. Please, Your Majesty, grant the classics and give the temple the word 'Chici'."

Ancient temples were graded.The highest level is "imperial construction". The royal family allocates special funds for construction and maintenance, and the monks in it eat "imperial food". Their tasks, of course, are to preside over relevant royal ceremonies and responsible for religious affairs for the royal family, with a high status.

The second class is "Chi Ci", a monastery designated by the royal family for protection.The royal family of this kind of temple will not contribute money, or will not contribute all of it. It is more about giving the temple a name of relationship with the royal family.

This kind of relationship is also diverse, some are places to pray for the country, some monastery abbots are the preceptors of the royal family members, and some are the family temples of the royal family members and so on.

"Zen Master Guoshan took advantage of the fact that he invited the abbot of Fawang Temple and practiced on behalf of Cixi, and obtained the imperial plaque of "Fawang Temple" and a set of "Dragon Tibetan Scriptures", which greatly boosted the reputation of Fawang Temple and eventually became a famous temple in southern Sichuan. In the forests of ten directions in northern Guizhou, the annual income is [-] stone land rent, and there are hundreds of monks living in the temple, creating the most prosperous situation of Fawang Temple."

Teacher Yuan and Manager Fei looked at Zhou Zhi differently. This... This is the local chronicle of Jiachuan where you are walking!
No wonder Gu Lao likes him so much!
Gu Youwen knew that this kid was helping his godfather with the cultural and historical work of Jiachuan County, but according to Zhengping, this kid grew up reading the old county chronicles at his uncle's house, so he didn't find it strange at all.He waved his hands and said, "Talk about the origin of the Dragon Canon, is it because Cixi Tongzhi hid the Qing Dynasty to them?"

"It's not such a good thing." Zhou Zhi said with a smile: "The reason why the "Dragon Canon" has the word 'dragon' is because it is the most sophisticated "Tripitaka" that two generations of emperors personally paid attention to and appointed people to supervise the work. , The printing and binding are exquisite, and Empress Dowager Cixi gave half a piece of Luanjia for flowers, which is estimated to be hundreds of taels of silver, which is obviously far worse than the Huanghuang rare books that contain more than 1000 Buddhist classics."

"This incident has been recorded in detail in the county, and it is actually an interesting story."

"At that time, Guoduan Guoqin went through Da Zongzheng's path, and what he got in the end was only the title of 'Bestowed' by Fawang Temple and the 'permit' to print scriptures."

"Afterwards, the matter was transferred to the Senglu Division."

"But at that time, the Senglu Division had long been reduced to an empty department with a salary. The several monks who led the staff knew nothing about this matter. They didn't even know where the engraving of the "Dragon Canon" was. .”

"Is there such a thing?" Gu Youwen was very surprised: "The Yongzheng and Qianlong dynasties paid great attention to the edition of "Dragon Canon", how dare they be so hasty?"

"Actually, from this incident, we can see how corrupt the official institutions of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties were at that time." Zhou Zhi said: "What should we do? Guoduan Guoqin had to report again, asking the court to search for the "Dragon Canon" "The whereabouts of the edition."

"After receiving the emperor's instructions, the officials of the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Household Affairs spent three months searching for the previous handover materials, and learned that this version of the "Dragon Canon" was sealed up after printing a hundred copies for the first time, and finally in Qianlong. At the end of the year, it was sent to the Berlin Temple on the outskirts of Beijing for storage."

"After getting the news, the two hurried to Bolin Temple again, but when the monks of Bolin Temple opened the storeroom, the shelves for storing scriptures were still there, but none of the "Dragon Canon" letter boxes that were supposed to be on top were there. there is none left."

"This..." Gu Youwen couldn't help crying and laughing: "Such a treasure of the country, the painstaking efforts and financial resources of the two dynasties have been gathered, and they are giving them such a joke?!"

"Fortunately, an old monk of Bolin Temple recalled that one year, because the warehouse had to repair the roof, those scriptures were transferred to Zhihua Temple for custody."

"The two rushed to Zhihua Temple again, where they finally found this set of precious engraving plates."

Although they clearly knew that this matter was finally done, everyone still breathed a sigh of relief when they heard this.

Only then did Zhou Zhi say: "Finding the engraving block is still the first step. By this time, Guoduan Guoqin's money has been used up. Fortunately, the monk relies on begging, so the two of them ran around to raise funds for printing, which eventually took time. After three months, I finally got together the silver taels, recruited workers, bought paper materials, and finally finished reprinting this "Dragon Canon" after September."

"Because the amount of printing of the "Dragon Canon" is very small, the scriptures are full of sharp edges, complete as new, and the printed new scriptures are perfect."

"Guoduan Guoqin didn't feel that he had worked hard, but was grateful for the great grace of the emperor. He added a page that he asked someone to process on the title page of each scripture. The difference between the Canon is that there is a newly added 'Tongzhi ten-year long live plaque' at the beginning of each volume."

"Have you seen this set of books?" Listening to Zhou Zhi's detailed description, Teacher Yuan couldn't help feeling a glimmer of hope in his heart.

"No." Zhou Zhi shook his head, "I read these from "Fang Wai" in the old county annals. I thought it was fun at the time, so I wrote it down."

"Oh." Teacher Yuan couldn't help feeling a little discouraged.

"What is the status of this temple now?" Gu Youwen asked.

"Unbelievable." Zhou Zhi shook his head, "The No. 11 abbot of Fawang Temple is Dongfang, he is the No. 40th of Linji Authentic Sect. The abbot of Fawang Temple, the posthumously elected abbot."

"He revitalized the Fawang Temple again. During the Anti-Japanese War, he also established the Fawang Temple Buddhist Academy. He hired Master Taixu of the Sino-Tibetan Academy of Teaching and Science as the honorary dean, invited Master Yinshun from Jinyun Mountain in Chongqing as the tutor, and Master Yanpei as the director of teaching affairs. The school starts every year, teaching Buddhist philosophy and common sense of the people, and training many monks and laymen. He once served as the president of the SC Provincial Martial Arts Association and spread a school of martial arts and qigong in southern Sichuan."

"But because of their reputation, they clashed with the Guizhou warlord. Li Chuyun, the bodyguard of the Guizhou warlord Zhou Qilong, is a master of the inner family. Under the instigation of Zhou Qilong's conspiracy, the two held a competition."

"Zen Master Dongfang was already old enough to fight at that time. After the competition, he lost a move and got hit by Li Chuyun's acupuncture point. Li Chuyun told Dongfang that as long as he admits defeat, I will untie it for you."

"Chan Master Dongfang is a proud person. He just said lightly, 'Life and death are fate, and poor monks will not bow to those who help evil and abusers.' Then he turned back to Fawang Temple."

"Three days later, the hidden disease broke out, and he vomited blood and died."

"Li Chuyun later found out that he had been used by Zhou Qilong to kill a great virtuous man. He was ashamed and ashamed, and angrily resigned from his post. He has never been seen since then."

"Since then, Fawang Temple has continued to decline and fall down again. After the founding of New China, the temple with only five monks was disbanded. I heard that there are only two old nuns left there. Registered as the elderly with five guarantees, Fawang Temple is actually just a dilapidated nursing home now."