Famen Temple

Famen Temple is another Buddhist temple, this one located in Xi'An. At this point in my trip here in China, I have been to at least half a dozen of these Buddhist temples. I myself am not religious. I was not raised on religion and have never given it much thought. These temples we visit don't do much for me but I do find the statues, architecture, and history interesting.

This is the original temple which has been reconstructed many times due again to war and nature. However, the location of the temple has always remained the same since it was built in 25AD.

In 2009 an entire new complex was built. When people come to pray at these temples, they usually offer money to Buddha(same idea as a collection plate in the US, I think). The new complex was built off of these funds. The picture above is the beginning of a long walk down to the new diamond shaped complex.

The structures at the beginning are huge!!

They are home to an ancient bell and a large drum.

As you walk down the path toward the new temple, ten huge golden statues are placed on both sides. Each one represents a different Buddha god to pray to depending on what you want.

Each one of these statues are quite impressive to see due to their great size. They all have Indian names with vowels and consonants that just don't seem to go together! :P

Along the path to the temple, mixed in along with the large golden statues, are small gardens. In these small gardens are little ponds or steams and different statues depicting scenes from Buddhist scriptures or of various monks praying. All along the walkway to the new temple, subtle soothing music plays of monks chatting. It makes for an extremely peaceful journey toward the temple.

I love the detail on this guy.

Some of the statues....

...come atomically correct!

The temple is the home to a small finger bone of Sakyamuni, the primary figure in Buddhism and whose teachings founded it. The bone was found in a tomb underneath the original temple when they were restoring it in 1987. Today it is kept inside of the temple in an underground vault.

Unfortunalty, once inside, you can't take any photos. I was sneaky and crept over to one side of the building where no one was and snapped the two photos above.