RELIGIOUS CENTER

Established in AD 68 under the patronage of Emperor Liu Zhuang in the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD25-220), which had Luoyang as its capital, White Horse Temple is the first Buddhist temple in China and the starting point of the spread of Buddhism in the country.

One night in AD 64, the emperor had a dream about a man whose body was “brilliant as the sun”. The dream inspired the emperor to send two officials westward to search for Buddhist scriptures.

The officials persuaded two Indian Buddhist monks they encountered in what is today’s Afghanistan to go to China to help spread Buddhism.

With the help of two white horses, the four managed to arrive in Luoyang with Buddhist sutras and a portrait of the Buddha three years later.

The temple started construction the following year. The emperor ordered the temple to be named in honor of the two white horses.

The two Indian monks, Kasyapa Matanga and Dharmaratna, translated many Buddhist classics at the temple. The scriptures translated by Matanga,

the Sutra of Forty-two Chapters, is the first Buddhist sutra in the Chinese language.

The temple gained importance as Buddhism spread and grew in East Asia and Vietnam.

The main buildings of the temple were reconstructed during the Yuan (1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (16441911) dynasties. The temple complex was refurbished in the 1950s and in 1972. It was also listed under key national cultural relics protection.

The White Horse Temple is a royal temple, said Wang Huijie, director of the Luoyang Administration for Religious Affairs.

This means the Buddha halls of all denominations of Buddhism can be built in the temple and Buddhists of different denominations can come to the temple to practice Buddhism, Wang said.