Famen Temple

Tang-era Buddhist temple housing a finger bone of the historical Buddha

A working Buddhist temple 120 km west of Xi'an in Fufeng County, Famen has been a pilgrimage site since the Tang dynasty because of one object: a fingerbone said to belong to the historical Buddha, brought here by traders from India in the early centuries AD. It is displayed only on the most important Buddhist holidays.

The original 8th-century crypt is now a museum housing the relic and the Tang treasures found around it — gold and silver tea sets, glass from the Eastern Mediterranean, silk woven with patterns that match exactly with painted scrolls of the period. A separate, dramatic modern complex built in 2009 encloses the precinct in a vast lotus-shaped processional hall designed by Taiwanese architect C.Y. Lee.

Famen is far enough from Xi'an to make for a long but rewarding day trip. Most travellers combine it with the Han imperial tombs at Maoling on the same circuit.

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A story
The Famen relic — a slim sliver of bone — was hidden under the central pagoda for almost a thousand years and forgotten. When the pagoda collapsed during a 1981 thunderstorm, archaeologists tunnelling under the rubble found a sealed Tang-dynasty crypt with the relic still wrapped in its original silks, surrounded by gilded reliquaries and the largest hoard of Tang gold and silver ever found.

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