Taiwan Today

For Buddhists and those in the local tourism sector, the establishment of the Buddha Memorial Center (BMC) in southern Taiwan on December 25, 2011 was definitely a big event. Created by Buddhist group Fo Guang Shan, the new cultural landmark in Kaohsiung City attracted Republic of China (ROC) political leaders during the eight-day opening celebrations, which ended on January 1 this year, the eighth day of the final month of the lunar calendar. The first day of the new year coincided with the day on which Gautama Siddhartha, the religious teacher and founder of Buddhism, is believed by many to have reached enlightenment. According to Venerable Master Hsing Yun (星雲法師), who founded Fo Guang Shan in 1967, the center serves to mark the 100th anniversary of the ROC and, more importantly, to make Taiwan more visible in the international community. “Taiwan is very small, but Buddha is very great with a following spread across the globe. I hope the world can have a deeper understanding of Taiwan because of this center,” the 86-year-old master says.

From its position facing the Kaoping River, the BMC is literally quite visible due to its sheer size. Occupying a 100-hectare site, the center is as large as the neighboring Fo Guang Shan Monastery, a complex that has long been a major attraction in southern Taiwan. The center’s main Buddha sculpture alone is imposing. Measuring 108 meters tall including its pedestal, it is the tallest bronze Buddha statue in a seated position in the world.

Tiny, Precious Relic

In contrast, the Memorial Hall in front of the seated Buddha statue houses a tiny but invaluable tooth of Buddha’s, which sits in a relic container in the Jade Buddha Shrine. Actually the religious relic is at the center of the founding of the BMC, the preliminary work for which started in February 1998. At the time, Hsing Yun traveled to and preached in Bodh Gaya in northeastern India, the sacred place for Buddhists where Gautama Siddhartha attained enlightenment at the age of 35, roughly 2,600 years ago. During the trip, Hsing Yun met with Kunga Dorje Rinpoche, an aged Tibetan lama, who decided to entrust Hsing Yun with the tooth of Buddha’s, which he had guarded for nearly 30 years. Two months later, a group of more than 200 people from Taiwan, including Buddhists and members of the social elite, flew to Bangkok to greet the tooth when it made a stopover in the Thai capital on its way to the island. The arrival of the relic in Taipei on April 9 that year proved to be a media sensation. For eight months the tooth was displayed to the public in Taiwan’s capital, attracting hundreds of thousands of worshippers before it was sent to Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Kaohsiung in December.

That was when the Buddhist group began to search Taiwan for a suitable site to build a permanent home for the relic. Having previously developed organizations in various sectors, from universities to a television station, Fo Guang Shan, one of the most influential Buddhist groups in Taiwan, made the decision in 2001 to build the BMC next to its Kaohsiung monastery. Work began on the center in 2003.

According to Venerable Master Tzu Hui (慈惠法師), executive assistant to Hsing Yun, the effort to build the BMC received administrative support from Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興), the then-magistrate of Kaohsiung County (which merged with Kaohsiung City in 2010) where the center is located. “The county government endeavored to market local color featuring religious diversity in a place which is home to important sites of various faiths,” Tzu Hui says, noting that Yang is also a devout Buddhist.

More than 100 revisions were made to blueprints for the Memorial Hall during the planning and construction phases. “The general design concept for the center came from Master Hsing Yun himself. The architects were mainly responsible for assessing the structural feasibility and safety of construction,” Tzu Hui says. “[Hsing Yun] is an expert in architecture who learns by hands-on experience,” Tzu Hui adds. The experience of supervising the design and construction of Fo Guang Shan’s many monasteries and galleries in Taiwan and abroad has familiarized Hsing Yun with the profession, explains Venerable Master Ju Chang (如常法師), who is responsible for setting up exhibition spaces in the BMC.

On the other hand, it proved to be rather challenging to communicate with designers hired to turn Hsing Yun’s concepts into reality. “They knew little about Buddhist traditions and aesthetics, and were often at a loss for how to incorporate Buddhist symbols in a particular place or position, for example. They tended to think along the lines of designing a commercial space and wanted to create something more like a five-star hotel for the interior spaces,” says Ju Chang, who graduated from Fo Guang University in Yilan County, northern Taiwan with a master’s degree in visual arts. Likewise, to make accurate exhibits in one museum at the BMC, monastery representatives sometimes had to demonstrate what occurs at certain festivals or simply invite designers to witness the rituals when they actually took place. “It took more time to communicate with them than to draw up and execute the plans,” says Ju Chang, who considers her role at the time as a bridge between Hsing Yun and the designers.

A Living Book on Buddhism

After eight years of work, the BMC finally opened to the public, attracting an estimated 1 million tourists during the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday in late January. “Visiting the center is the equivalent of reading a book on Buddhism and its development,” Venerable Master Miao Kai (妙開法師), the president of Merit Times, the daily newspaper published by Fo Guang Shan, says of the BMC’s potential to educate visitors.

Features such as the center’s architecture and layout illustrate Miao Kai’s comment. The Indian-style Memorial Hall, which sits in front of the giant Buddha statue, for example, suggests the geographical origin of Buddhism in the subcontinent. The site’s four towers dedicated to deities embodying compassion, wisdom, vows and practice are typical of those found at the sacred Buddhist site at Bodh Gaya. From the hall extends the Great Path to Buddhahood, a broad avenue on both sides of which stand four seven-story pagodas reminiscent of the architecture of the Tang dynasty (618–907), an era when Buddhism reached its peak in China. Farther away, near the entrance to the complex, one building houses modern-day shops forming a “timeline” of sorts from ancient India to today. The stores include a 7-Eleven convenience store, the only one in Taiwan where no meat-based foods can be found in accordance with Fo Guang Shan’s principles of vegetarianism.

Along one side of the BMC runs a verdant slope similar to Vulture Peak Mountain in India, where Buddha preached the Lotus Sutra and many of his disciples meditated in its small caves; similarly hundreds of holes are being excavated in the slope and will be made into rooms for one person to meditate and stay in overnight.

Compared with the neighboring Fo Guang Shan Monastery, which developed over more than 40 years, the BMC is more eye-catching partly because the design of the entire complex was completed prior to its construction. “The broad expanse of space is magnificent and the structures are imposing. The place is also impressive as a united whole. All this gives an august feel to the site,” Lee Chan (李瞻), a retired professor of journalism, says of his visit to the BMC in January.

In the meantime, collections and exhibitions in the Memorial Hall bring the visitors closer to the religion. The Museum of Buddhist Festivals introduces, for example, rituals and celebrations on Buddha’s Birthday and Dharma Day—the day celebrating the beginning of Buddha’s teachings—through interactive technologies and other means. There is also a hall on the life of Buddha, which relates stories from the major stages of his life. A so-called “four-dimensional” theater is a must-see for most visitors, as it shows a short 3-D film ending with “real” linden leaves falling from above as Buddha passes away and reaches Parinirvana.

The center’s uniqueness also lies in the artistic value of its collection. In the hall dedicated to the goddess of compassion, the circular space aims to create the feeling of a cosmos of mutually inclusive realms as is described in the Avatamsaka Sutra, or Flower Adornment Sutra. The hall includes a sculpture of the deity made by local artist Yang Hui-shang (楊惠姍), and 33 images based on gouache paintings of the goddess by Taiwanese artist Shi Jin-hui (施金輝) are engraved on glass sheets. An adjacent space exhibits 134 Buddhist artifacts donated by entrepreneur Chen Yung-tai (陳永泰), the president of Taiwan’s Aurora Group, who is known for his wide collection of such items. The BMC has also become an important art venue in southern Taiwan for non-Buddhist works, with two galleries designated for such creations. Notably, an exhibition of gold sculptures by Wu Ching (吳卿) was one of the center’s opening shows.

Items currently being collected in the 48 rooms directly below the Memorial Hall are intended for future generations. The BMC’s staff plan to spend the next five years filling the underground rooms with a wide variety of contemporary articles, from commonplace items to those of historical significance, thus creating 48 “time capsules.” The collection already includes Buddha statues, industrial products and even a baseball signed by Taiwanese athlete Wang Chien-ming (王建民). Fo Guang Shan plans to open one of the underground spaces to the public every 100 years, which means the last room will remain sealed for 4,800 years.

Venerable Master Tzu Jung (慈容法師), the secretary-general of the organization’s world headquarters in Los Angeles, notes that the BMC’s museums and galleries are open to visitors free of charge. “Educating the public is the major mission of Fo Guang Shan,” she says.

Faith in Daily Life

In line with the Humanistic Buddhism practiced by Hsing Yun, the group’s mission also involves integrating the faith into daily life. For example, a Buddhist-style group wedding ceremony for more than 200 couples took place on the grounds to mark the center’s opening. A wedding company run by Fo Guang Shan devotees has since begun operations on the ground floor of one of the Chinese-style pagodas to organize such events for individual couples.

Other educational elements include the center’s Life Protection Murals, a series of 86 bas-reliefs created on the walls of the compound. Based on original drawings by cartoonist Feng Zikai (豐子愷, 1898–1975) from Zhejiang province in mainland China, the murals highlight the Buddhist prohibition against killing by depicting the pain of animals being slaughtered as well as the joy and harmony in a world without killing. The words of Buddhist Master Hong Yi (弘一法師, 1880–1942), Feng’s mentor in fine arts, are displayed alongside the pictures to help convey the message.

“The BMC is also suitable for holding large public meetings in the open air,” says Tzu Jung, who is responsible for organizing most of Fo Guang Shan’s major events. With a large space that can accommodate 100,000 people, the site has already been used as the venue of a large rally in August 2011 that was attended by followers of various religions praying for Taiwan and world peace, ahead of the center’s official opening in December. For the past three years, Fo Guang Shan has co-organized celebrations for Buddha’s Birthday on the second Sunday of May in the open space in front of the Office of the President in Taipei, but this year the annual event is planned to take place at the new center in Kaohsiung.

Starting with a tiny tooth of Buddha’s, the story of the BMC continues to grow. As a result, Fo Guang, or Buddha’s light, is poised to shine brighter in southern Taiwan and beyond.

Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw