Some 100,000 Taiwanese Buddhists greeted a relic said to be the
2,500-year-old finger of Sakyamuni Buddha as it arrived from
Chinese mainland on Saturday.
The arrival of the Buddhist treasure marked one of the most
important cross-Straits religious exchanges.
The crowds chanted sutra and clasped hands to pay respect as the
relic was moved from Taipei airport to Taiwan University stadium,
local television pictures showed.
The entourage was led by marching bands and police vehicles on its
way to the stadium, which was decorated for worshippers.
Hundreds of Taiwanese Buddhists accompanied the finger on its
journey from Xi'an, in northern Shaanxi province, to Taiwan via
Hong Kong.
The relic will be displayed around Taiwan for 37 days.
Sakyamuni Buddha died in BC 485 and the finger was brought to China
from India some 200 years later, historical documents show.
A
Tang Dynasty emperor ordered it to be sealed under the pagoda in
the
Famen Temple in Xi'an in AD 874.
The finger was not seen in public until 1986, when the provincial
government cleared the rubble of the temple's pagoda after heavy
rains caused it to collapse in 1981.
(China
Daily February 24, 2002)