Famen Temple is located in famen Town ten kilometers north of Fufeng County seat, 120 kilometers west of Xi'an. It is a famous temple in china. It was built in ancient times to house the finerbones of Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism.Famen means the initial approach to become a Buddhist believer. Famen Temple was constructed in Eastern Han Dynasty because of the stupa there. Famen Temple stupa, also known as "the Real Spirit Pagoda", is famous for the fact that it houses a finger bone of Sakyamuni. After Sakyamuni's nirvana, in 485 B.C. the Buddhist King Asoka (268 B.C.-232 B.C.)of ancient India decreed that in order to spread Buddhism he would divide Sakyamuni's relics into 84,000 bits and send them to places all over the world. 84,000 stupas were constructed to house them. There are 19such stupas in China. Famen Temple Stupa is one of them. Thus Famen Temple and its stupa enjoyed the reputation of being the "forefather of pagodas and temples in Central Shaanxi."
The underground palace at Famen Temple, 21.2 meters long, covers an area of 31.84 square meters. It is the largest palace among all the temples and stupas discovered so far in china. The four finger bones discovered there are most riveting. The first one was kept in an eight-layered chest in the back room. The finger bone, 40.3 millimeters long and hollow all though, hung vertically on a silver bar on a gold stupa base. The third one was kept in a five-layered marble chest, which was retained in a secret niche in the back room. This finger bone is tube-like, 37millimeters long and is slightly yellow. The fourth one was kept in a colored King Asoka stupa in the front room. Its color and shape are very much like that in the first and second finger bone. Zhao Puchu, Chairman of the All-china Buddhism Association and Zhou Shaoliang, Vice Chairman of the Buddhism Association, determined that the third finger bone is the original, which means it is the only real finger bone of the Buddha. The other three were "shadow bone," imitations which the Tang emperor had made in order to protect the real one. But in the eyes of Buddhist believers, even the "shadow bones" were so sacred that they too enjoyed the same significance and importance as the real one.The finger bone discovered at Famen Temple is the only real finger bone of the Buddha that has been discovered and maintained in the world. Many other relics were also unearthed form the underground palace. They are considered to be national treasures.
