Modeled after Tang Dynasty-era architecture, Chung Tai Chan Monastery’s World Museum yesterday officially opened to the public in Taichung, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the monastery’s founding.
The museum has floor space of more than 66,000m2 and cost NT$2.5 billion (US$79.6 million) to build. Construction began in 2013, the monastery said.
The museum is styled after Changan in China’s Shanxi Province, now known as Xian, which during the Tang Dynasty saw a huge flourishing of Buddhist architecture, the monastery said, adding that the Chinese style of architecture employing “Western” methods of construction symbolized the bringing together of East and West, as well as the integration of Buddhism and Zhonghua culture (中華文化).
During the Tang Dynasty, “the West” referred to India, where Buddhism originated.
The museum has displays of Buddhist steles and other relics, the monastery said.
The museum’s completion and opening to the public fulfilled the final wishes of the monastery’s founder, Master Wei Chueh (惟覺法師), who passed away in April, the monastery said.
The museum is divided into 18 exhibition halls, with two areas dedicated to Buddhist statues, steles and 1,273 stele rubbings given to the monastery by the Xian Beilin Museum, the museum said.
The exhibitions are arranged in three main categories — individual writings, pictures and drawings, and sutras — to show that writing preserves ideas and thought, images allow later generations to verify if they are on the right path and sutras pass on truths, the museum said.
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