LUOYANG: White Horse Temple, Longmen Grottos, Shaolin Temple and more. 

 

Leaves of a Bodhi tree, according to my guide.

My guide was Arron Liu, a young man who says he mostly taught himself to speak English, which was quite good, though at times I was quite mystified trying figure out what he was saying.  He says he is a Christian, so he is the second Christian that I have met in China.

The bodhi tree (above) is the in the garden of the White Horse Temple.  I have to note that its leave are dissimilar to the ones that are posted in Wikipedia and other internet sites.

The history of the temple is very interesting.  It begins with a dream the Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han dynasty had of a tall golden figure.  When he was told the dream was interpreted as being about a divine person who could be found in the west.  The emperor sent a delegation to the west, toward India, to search for this religion.   They encountered two monks in what is now Afghanistan, who agree to come with the delegation to China, where they stayed translating the scrolls they carried into Chinese.    When they arrived, the emperor built the temple and named it White Horse temple in honor of the white horses that carried these monks to Luoyang.  This temple is seen as the first Buddhist temple in China, and important in that it was from this beginning that Buddhism spread throughout China and to countries like Korea and Japan.

Sometime during the 20th and 21st century a Cambodian/Thai Buddhist temple was built next to the White Horse Temple, and then an Indian Buddhist temple was built.  There is also a temple from Myanmar.   These temples are stark contrasts to the White Horse Temple.

The Indian temple

Unfortunately, I was unable to keep the other two temples separate and have confused them in the photos.  

SHAOLIN TEMPLE

 

In the afternoon we arrived at the Shaolin Temple, where we had a vegetarian lunch and walked to the temple itself.   The highlights of the Shaolin Temple as might be expected, were the performances.   But surprisingly the Pagoda Forest was also an attraction as well.

Our Driver

One of the highlights of the performances is the audience competition.  Three members of the audience are invited onstage to repeat the moves made by one of the trainees.   The audience members were surprisingly good.  And if the videos work, here is a taste of one of the audience members.