1, the origin of Hoonji:
The history of Dahongzhi started from Sun Wu and went through various dynasties, including Chang Gan Temple and Tianxi Temple. The Great Hoonji Pagoda was formerly known as Ashoka Pagoda. During the Chiwu period in Wu Dong, Sun Quan built Chusi and Ashoka Pagoda, which was the beginning of the stupa temple in the south of the Yangtze River and was known as the "first temple in the south of the Yangtze River". They are the second temple in China after the White Horse Temple in Luoyang and the first temple in southern China.
According to textual research, Ashoka Tower was built during the reign of Emperor Xingping in the Eastern Han Dynasty. It is the oldest tower in Nanjing and one of the earliest towers in China. The tower was probably built by Mo Rong, a native of Moling. He used to be a traffic officer in Guangling, Xiapi and Pengcheng counties under the rule of Tao Qian, the secretariat of Xuzhou, and used the traffic income to build temples and towers.
Furong is the founder of China attic pagoda, which was first seen in official history. After that, he retreated to his hometown of Moling and was conquered by Sun Ce. In the tenth year of Chiwu in Wu Dong, Sun Quan, the emperor of Wu Dong, built Jianchu Temple and Ashoka Pagoda for Kangju Monks in Chang Gan, which became the beginning of Jiangnan Pagoda Temple.
2. The legend of Hoonji:
During the Ming Wuzong period, the abbot of Nanjing Dahongzhi was a master of Xilin. Zheng De fifteen years, Zhu Houzhao, Amin Wuzong, visited Hongzhi. When he entered the main hall at the bottom of the glass tower, he suddenly found a rectangular hole in the ground.
He asked the monk on duty, and the monk said in a panic that it was a "golden well". Zhu Houzhao listened with a sad face. Master Xilin, the abbot of Hongzhi, had to tell the secret of the relic, calling it "gas eye". This gas eye was left to maintain the vitality and spirituality of the Buddha relic.
Architectural value:
As a model of China's classical architectural culture, Nanjing Dahongji Temple is the largest temple site excavated in China, which provides extremely important information for studying the regulation and layout of the royal temples in the Ming Dynasty.
The underground palace of Chang Gan Temple, which was built in the Northern Song Dynasty, was discovered in Taki, and a large number of precious Buddhist cultural relics, with the true bones at the top of the Buddha as the core and the Seven Treasures Asoka Pagoda as the representative, were unearthed, which caused great sensation at home and abroad.
These great discoveries are of great significance to the study of the construction of the stupa underground palace, the storage system of relics and the spread and exchange of Chinese and Western Buddhism in the Song Dynasty. This excavation also found the clue of building an "eagle frame" around the tower foundation for the first time, and revealed the construction method of the pagoda in the Ming Dynasty, which is of great value to the study of the history of ancient architectural technology in China.