148 charles d. orzech and henrik h. sørensen
East Asian, and especially Chinese, traditions concerning relics of the
Buddha are linked to tales of Emperor Aśoka’s construction of 84,000
śarīra-containing stūpas and the “rediscovery” of these in China.^9
Many rulers and members of the upper classes in Chinese society
showed their devotion in public by having a stūpa and its Chinese
counterpart, the pagoda, constructed.^10 Related buildings are the sto-
ried pavilions (Ch. louge ) that also served as repositories for relics
and other holy objects. Stūpas and pagodas were eventually connected
with the geomantic tradition (fengshui ), and erecting them was
commonly believed to enhance the local energy or vitality of a given
place.^11
One may distinguish between a stūpa and a pagoda from the way
they functioned in terms of cultic practice. While the stūpa was chiefly
a monument for a deceased holy person, and could contain bodily rel-
ics or, in some cases, the entire body, the pagoda was more properly a
monument of Buddhist power and truth, a beacon of enlightenment.^12
Even so, the respective meaning and function of stūpas and pagodas
overlap. Though no cases are known in which pagodas functioned as
part of a funerary tradition, they could contain bodily relics in some
cases, such as we have seen with the celebrated pagoda from Famen
Temple ( that housed what was believed to be a finger bone
relic of Śākyamuni Buddha.^13 Both stūpas and pagodas contained holy
objects, and both were empowered and sealed in accordance with spe-
cial rituals.^14
(^9) For a concise account of the Aśokan stūpa traditions see Trainor 1997, 39–45.
(^10) See Barrett, 2001 for a detailed analysis of the role of relics and stūpas in the
politics of Empress Wu’s reign.
(^11) See Kieschnick 2003, 38–44.
(^12) The bodies of embalmed monks played an important role in some Chan/Zen
traditions. See Faure’s discussion 1991, 132–147 and Sharf 1992, 1–31. 13
For an introduction to the Famen temple finds, see Karetzky 1994, 78–85; and
also Chen, “Esoteric Buddhism and Monastic Institutions,” and Sørensen, “Esoteric
Buddhist Art under the Tang,” in this volume. A beautifully documented accounting
of the finds are in Wu and Han 1998, though scholars dispute some of their conclu-
sions. Wang 2004, 79–85, 103, 111, 118 has argued for a funerary dimension to the
Famen relics. 14
The finger bone relic of the Famen Temple had served as a kind of dynastic pal-
ladia during the Tang, as it was brought to the palace and displayed for public wor-
ship on a thirty-year cycle. See Huang 1998, 483–533. This is to some extent true for
“sūtra pillars” or dhāraṇī pillars as well. See the discussion in Sørensen,
“Esoteric Buddhism in Sichuan during the Tang and Five dynasties Period,” in this
volume.