406 henrik h. sØrensen
which are said to include a finger bone from Śākyamuni, the historic
Buddha.^10 After an earthquake, the Ming pagoda, which had been
raised over the underground relic-chamber or crypt (digong ),^11
partly collapsed in 1981. Only after the rebuilding of the pagoda was
undertaken in 1984 were the relics re-discovered and subsequently
exhibited to the public.^12 Although the treasury of relics contains a
number of objects that bear the imprint of Esoteric Buddhism, when
seen as a whole the crypt and the Buddhist artifacts it contains cannot
be considered Esoteric Buddhist per se. Nevertheless, various scholars
have pointed to the Esoteric Buddhist nature of the relics and the reli-
quary, some even going so far as to consider the set of caskets in which
the main relic is kept as a mandala (cf. Luo 1995, 53–62).^13 When look-
ing at the set of the reliquary consisting of six reliquary boxes and a
small stūpa of pure gold, the ones that interest us here are the three
boxes with engraved illustrations (figure 2).
The outer casket features images of the Four Heavenly Kings, one to
each side. The second being undecorated, it is the third that is of spe-
cial interest to us here as the lid and its four sides are decorated with
five buddha assemblies representing the five kulas or “families” of the
five dhyāni buddhas (i.e., Vairocana, Ratnasambhava, Amoghasiddhi,
Amitābha, and Aksobhya).̣^14 The Chinese scholars Han Wei and Luo
Zhao have correctly identified the iconography on this box as repre-
senting the Vajradhātu Mandala; however, their argument is only par-
(^10) The controversy surrounding the Buddha’s finger relic and the socio-political
commotions that it caused have been described in Ch’en 1973, 267–271. See also
Weinstein 1987b, 37, 46, 58, and 125.
(^11) It appears that the installment in Buddhist pagodas was based on practices and
beliefs that had pre-Buddhist origins. Investigations of many pagodas from the late
medieval period have revealed that many had two relic storage areas: an underground
chamber (the digong), and an upper chamber (the tiangong ). This of course
reflects the classical Chinese concepts of 12 yin (earth) and yang (heaven).
Numerous articles and books have since been published on the relics from the
pagoda of the Famen Temple. Included here are those of special merit, either as regards
to their description of the relics or because of the documentary value of their illus-
trations. For a general introduction, see Chen 1988, Zhang et al. 1990, and Famen si
Archaeological Team 1988. See also http://academic.hws.edu/chinese/huang/mdln210/
famensi.htm for easy access to photos of some of the important relics. 13
Luo’s understanding of the Famen Temple relics and the underground chamber
is more balanced and perceptive than the analysis provided by Han 1992, and he
argues with good reason against seeing the underground chamber as reflecting Eso-
teric Buddhist beliefs per se. 14
Han 1992. This is the first really serious attempt at identifying and contextual-
izing the iconography of the third relic box.