The Taipei City Government announced yesterday that traffic controls would be imposed on several major thoroughfares today due to the arrival of a finger relic believed to have belonged to Sakyamuni Buddha -- the historic Buddha.
As the relic will be sent directly from the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport to National Taiwan University's domed stadium for a three-day exhibition, the Taipei City Police Headquarters said traffic controls would be imposed on major streets along its route, including Hsinsheng S. Road, Jenai Road and Hsinhai Road.
The controls will remain in place from 3pm through 5pm, a police official said, adding that drivers are advised to detour during the time period to avoid possible traffic jams as throngs of local Buddhist followers are expected to turn out to greet the relic.
Buddhist Master Hsin Yun, founder of the Fokuangshan Monastery in Kaohsiung County, led a 300-member delegation to China Thursday to escort the relic to Taiwan for exhibition in Taipei and other places around Taiwan for 40 days.
Prior to his departure, Hsin Yun said he was convinced that the exhibition of the Buddhist treasure in Taiwan will help "purify human hearts, cleanse social morals and bring peace to the Taiwan Strait."
Noting that the relic is an invaluable symbol of Buddhism and a spiritual asset, Hsin Yun said its arrival will mark a new milestone in cross-strait religious exchanges.
Hsin Yun further said he hopes local people will welcome the arrival of the relic with calm and reason. The Buddhist master, who recently expressed his distaste for the island's prevailing lottery mania, said he would not like to see local people become "wild" over the relic.
Hundreds of monks chanted scriptures and rang bells yesterday as the finger was taken from a temple in central China and flown to Taiwan in a container decorated with jewels.
The relic, which is kept at the Famen Temple in Xian, in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi, will arrive today escorted by a large number of Buddhist faithful from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
On Thursday, Taiwanese cable news stations covered the elaborate ceremony of removing the finger from the temple. About 300 Taiwanese monks and several more from China wore bright yellow and orange robes as they chanted before followers who filled up the temple's courtyard.
"This is a big religious event. It will help foster closer ties" between Taiwan and China, Taiwanese monk Hsin Yun told Eastern TV in Xian.
According to religious documents, after the Buddha's cremation in 485BC, some historians and Buddhists believe his bones were saved by Indian monks as souvenirs and that a few pieces were brought to China some 200 years later, as monks went there to preach Buddhism.
The finger was sealed in a basement of the Famen Temple's pagoda in 874AD by order of an emperor from the ancient Tang Dynasty. It has not been seen in public since 1986, when the Shaanxi provincial government cleared the rubble of the temple's pagoda, which collapsed in 1981 amid torrential rains.
In 1998 the Fokuanshan Monastery brought back from Thailand a tooth believed to be one of only three Buddha teeth preserved in the world. The tooth had been held in India since being smuggled out of Tibet during China's 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique