Page:Peking the Beautiful.pdf/54

 The Pan Chan Lama Memorial

WAT Z ITHIN the secluded walls of the famous Huang Ssă, a Buddhist monastery two miles north of Peking, there stands to-day the most remarkable and perhaps the finest monument in all China --the Pan Chan Lama Memorial. This splendid marble cenotaph, which is shown in the opposite plate, was erected by the emperor Chien Lung in honor of the Pan Ch'an Lama, one of the "Living Buddhas" from Tibet, who contracted smallpox while on a visit to the emperor, and died in his palace near Peking in the year 1780. The "Son of Heaven," anxious to prove his devotion to the Lama faith, and eager to retain the friendship of the Mongol monks, placed the body of the holy man in a golden coffin and sent him back to the Dalai Lama in Tibet. The emperor then proceeded to prepare a second precious casket in which were placed the infected garments of the saint, and over this was erected the beautiful white marble stupa, to stand as a perpetual memorial to the life and labors of this illustrious priest. As we leave the protecting towers of old Anting Mên, and wend our way northward over the dusty plain toward the massive walls of this ancient Buddhist monastery, with its temple roofs of yellow tile gleaming like gold in the sunlight, we follow in the footsteps of thousands of faithful devotees who for centuries have come here "to gaze with reverent awe and place their votive offerings before the temple shrine." As we stand with silent worshipers beneath the shadow of this proud monument, with its massive proportions, its exquisite sculpture, and its golden crown, in its picturesque setting amid shady groves of cypress and pine, we are deeply impressed with the rare ability of the Chinese sovereigns to choose the sites for their temples and shrines, "so that the beauties of nature should enhance the work of the religious architect." "No better example of modern stone sculpture exists near Peking," says Juliet Bredon, "than this pinnacled memorial modeled oa Tibetan lines, adhering generally to the ancient ladian type but dijering in that the dome is inverted. The spire, composed of thirteen steplike segments symbolical of the thirteen Buddhist heavens, is surmounted by a large cupola of gilded bronze, and the whole monument, with the four attendant pagodas and the fretted white pailous, is raised on a stone and marble terrace. From its wave-patterned base to the gilded ball thirty feet above, it is chiseled with carvings in relief, which recall the Mongol tombs and palaces in Agra and Delhi, and on its eight sides we find sculptured scenes from the life of the deceased Lama--the preternatural circumstances attendant on his birth, his entrance to the priesthood, combats with heretics, instruction of disciples, and death A pathetic note is given by the lion who wipes his eyes with his paw in grief over the good man's passing. All this carving is unusually fine with extraordinary richness of Omanentation." For a further description of the Huang Ssū, or "Yellow Temple," see paqe 122.