Chapter 176 — A Mundane Buddhist Hall
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 3 of 6
The sound was strange: at first hearing it seemed the chanting of scriptures by the temple's monks, yet mingled with it were other odd noises—some that Ming Li would never have imagined could be heard here, such as village women gathered together chattering, or lay devotees loudly hailing the Buddha, and fainter still, the sound of children crying.
How could such strange noises arise in the Fanyin Temple, famed as one of the three great orthodox sects of the world?
Ming Li's heart was full of doubt and alarm. He looked to Fa Cheng, but Fa Cheng's expression was unchanged as he led the way toward the archway and stepped through. Ming Li frowned, steadied himself, and followed him out.
Beyond the gate all at once opened wide: white jade paved the ground and spread into a courtyard, with stone steps rising in tiers, nine to a group, joined one upon another up to the Mahavira Hall—nine times nine, eighty-one groups in all. Between the jade-carved balustrades stood the halls, towering and majestic; before the hall thirteen great stone pillars thrust up into the sky, more than ten zhang high. The roof blazed with gold, its eight ridges dividing the expanse above, each carved in the shape of a dragon's head, and before each flying eave's dragon head were carved, unmistakably, ten auspicious beasts, each of a different form, lifelike and vivid. (Note 1)
The carvings below the hall were so ornate and exquisite that they far surpassed the imagining of ordinary folk, beyond the making of common hands. Behind the Mahavira Hall, to either side, and before it, lofty halls joined one after another—now linked by open plazas, now winding together by narrow paths, some built directly adjoining, tier upon tier, a sight of great magnificence.
Yet magnificent and splendid as these structures were, and truly breathtaking, what astonished Ming Li most at this moment was not any of it, but that in this solemn holy ground of Buddhism there should now be countless ordinary folk thronging to and fro, countless people holding incense, kneeling and bowing in worship—on the steps and in the plazas, within the halls and without—the incense smoke so thick it was beyond imagining.
This vast Fanyin Temple, the Fanyin Temple that held such exalted rank among the orthodox sects of the world, was open like any common temple of the mortal realm to countless lay people come to burn incense and worship the Buddha.
Ming Li had never imagined such a thing. The strange noises from before he now understood, but the scene before his eyes only bewildered him further. Raised from childhood on Canglan Mountain, he had long since grown used to the so-called bearing of the immortal cultivators: immortal mountains and immortal realms belonged, by rights, to cultivators alone. On Canglan Mountain, when had one ever seen an ordinary commoner climb the mountain to burn incense and make vows?
He turned to Fa Cheng and asked in astonishment: "What is this...?"
Fa Cheng smiled slightly. "Today happens to be the first day of the month, so there are more people than usual. Our temple's incense is indeed flourishing, but on ordinary days there are not so many; only on the first and fifteenth of each month do the people from several hundred li around come by custom to worship the Buddha." (Note 2)
Ming Li shook his head. He hesitated, but in the end asked: "No—what I find strange is, why do you let the common people come in to burn incense and worship the Buddha?"