The small Buddhist shrine Fayuan, the Temple of the Source of Dharma, is located in the heart of modern Beijing. Only a few initiates know that it contains a priceless treasure that cannot be measured in any gold - paper lists with the wills of Buddhist monks from an ancient monastery. On paper tapes, hieroglyphs were copied from 15 thousand stone slabs.
Copies are painstakingly rolled up and cataloged like the collections of a large library. 30 million hieroglyphs of these inscriptions are clearly visible, and they can be read, despite the archaism and complexity of the text.
But for such a colossal work, modern Buddhist monks did not have enough knowledge, and at the invitation of the Chinese government, a German expert on the history of East Asian art, professor at the University of Heidelberg Lothar Ledderose is working on deciphering the texts.
It all started with a stone stele with hieroglyphs, found in 1956 in a village school, containing a precise indication of where to look for treasures hidden under the ground: "Under the pagoda, one step to the side, 4500 stones with sutras are hidden in an underground cache …" So people XX century for the first time they learned about the huge stone library.
The Yunju Monastery (Cloud Monastery), founded in the 6th century, lies on the banks of a small river in the spurs of a mountain range, just 80 kilometers from Beijing. One of the monks confidently showed Professor Ledderose where the South Pagoda stood. Archaeologists quickly found what they were looking for - 10 thousand stone slabs.
Large, smoothly sanded slabs did not adhere closely to one another. The monks prudently filled all the gaps between them with soft loess earth so that the stones would not touch. The hieroglyphs really remained intact.
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The finds were examined and photographed. In addition, an impression was made from each slab: a layer of black ink was applied to the wet paper and pressed against the surface of the slab, so that a negative image of the signs remained on the paper.
These prints were transported to Beijing. For several decades, the slabs lay on the surface and visitors to the monastery could see them. Then the monks noticed that the sandstone on which the texts were carved began to crumble, crumble, and on some slabs the hieroglyphs were completely crumbling.
And for the preservation of the ancient slabs in the monastery in 1999, an underground storage was built, equipped with the latest technology.
The abbot of Jinghui Monastery said of the new vault, "It saved thousands of years of sutras and comforts our ancestors." Ancient writings contain the testament of the Chinese monks, drawn up for distant future generations - an extensive body of knowledge accumulated by a developed civilization during the period of its peak.
Buddhist monks have preserved for descendants the sutras of the great Buddha and his commandments for believers - detailed instructions for all occasions: how to plant and grow trees, how to help nature in order to avoid hunger and pestilence …
It contains centuries-old knowledge about a person: medical information, moral requirements and very strict rules governing everyday life. For example, after bathing, it was impossible to use aromatic oils; eating was allowed only until noon; once a week they fasted - they didn't eat anything all day. And the most important prohibition is that you cannot eat meat!
But a natural question arises: why did the monks put so much effort grinding stone slabs and carving hieroglyphs on them, because paper and woodcut printing were invented in China long ago, and from the 10th century. have you already used movable type typography?
Professor Ledderose deciphered the record of nine caves, which were gouged with great difficulty by the monks in the rocky mountains.
Now you can see only one of them - the Cave of Thunder Rolling. Around 600, the young monk Chinwan made a solemn vow - to preserve the main knowledge of the world for the distant future. He punched a cave in the rock and laid it from the inside with stone slabs with hieroglyphs engraved on them. These are the first 147 pages of the 15 thousand parts of the stone book. They were originally to lie in a secret vault for many centuries.
Wall with impressions from slabs in the monastery
The very first dedication inscription was found on a casket with relics - a silver box decorated with pearls. Chinwan buried it in the middle of the cave, and this ancient object later became a Buddhist shrine. To the right of the entrance in 628, a stubborn monk made an inscription: an ominous prophecy about the imminent death of mankind and a gloomy prediction of the coming universal darkness.
It is not clear to whom these dire warnings were intended. Maybe just for us? The stone library did not go to either contemporaries or future generations - after all, it was hidden and forgotten. The monks filled the entrance to the Thunder Rolling Cave with a heavy stone block.
Through a narrow gap, with the help of compact photographic equipment, tables with hieroglyphs can be discerned - a total of 5,000 stone slabs. The hieroglyphs on them are so clear that Professor Ledderose was able to read something on the monitor screen: a Chinese monk of the 7th century. listed there the most important - the eternal truths that a select few should know in order to survive the end of the world.
The apocalyptic prophecies of the long-deceased Chinese sage are surprisingly accurate and terrifyingly relevant: merciless fires will rage in the forests, violent streams will flood fertile fields and cities - natural disasters will devastate the Earth, and in the end it will become uninhabitable.
The death of livestock, unknown ailments, hunger and strife will destroy humanity. Only a select few will be saved, they will move away from the world into inaccessible mountains and will live in deep caves according to the commandments of Buddha. Professor Ledderose deciphered 30 texts detailing how this should happen.
That is why Buddhist monks, on the eve of the death of mankind, captured the most valuable knowledge about the world on imperishable and eternal material. They hid the "stone books" in the uninhabited mountains, where they had to survive during the disaster. They thought that neither floods nor forest fires would get there. The thickness of the mountain will protect the caves from hurricanes and "heavenly rockfall" - meteorites.
But back to Beijing, where Lothar Ledderose deciphers the leaves of a stone book written by several generations of Buddhist monks.
The German scientist got to an ornate allegorical plot, the meaning of which boils down to amazing news: there is a second stone library, gigantic in size, in addition not hidden, but lying on an open mountain slope, 500 km south of Beijing.
At the foot of the sacred mountain there is a temple in honor of the great Chinese prophet Mencius, a follower of Confucius, who lived in 372-289. BC. Stones with hieroglyphs lie on the top, chaotically scattered along the slopes of the mountain. Whether the inscriptions on them are related to the prophecies of the "stone book" is unknown.
The worn steps of the stairs lead up to the middle of the mountain height - there is a small monastery. The 90-year-old abbot of the monastery warmly opens the doors and sincerely rejoices at unexpected visitors: he lives there alone. When asked about the hieroglyphs on the stones, he says that he knows them well: "These stones have always been here."
Stones with hieroglyphs carved on them lie on the slope above the monastery. Climbing the mountain is very difficult, and at the top a wide plateau suddenly opens up. Lothar Ledderose and two of his Chinese colleagues saw there gigantic hieroglyphs carved on stones, the dimensions of which were clearly not designed for human perception! Some of them are half a meter high, while others are located on sheer cliffs, and it is impossible to see them from below.
But if large and distinct signs are placed in places where people cannot see them in any way, then someone else should have seen them. But who? Otherworldly beings - gods, angels, spirits or ancestors? Maybe aliens?
Ledcerose believes that they were carved 30 years earlier than the first slabs of the "stone library". He assumes that the young monk Chinwan knew about these giant writings, and it was they who prompted him to write the main knowledge on stone and hide it for the few righteous people who will survive the end of the world.