Lanzhou, May 5 (ZXS) -- Wang Kang, director of the Institute of Cultural Relics of the Dafo Temple in Zhangye, Gansu, said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Agency on the 22nd that the "Digital Protection Project for Immovable Cultural Relics of the Big Buddha Temple", which lasted for two years and had a total investment of more than 22 million yuan, was launched in May, marking that the Zhangye Big Buddha Temple, which was built in the first year of Chongzong's Yong'an in Western Xia Province (2) and has Asia's largest indoor wooden clay sculpture reclining Buddha and other cultural relics treasures, has entered a new stage of digital protection.
The picture shows the wooden clay reclining Buddha in the Great Buddha Hall of Zhangye Big Buddha Temple in the "Western Xia Guo Temple". Photo by Yang Yanmin
Located in the southwest corner of Zhangye City, Gansu Province, Zhangye Big Buddha Temple is known as the "Western Xia Guo Temple" and is one of the last four remaining royal temples in China. The Big Buddha in the temple is not only the largest indoor wooden clay sculpture reclining Buddha in Asia, but also the "Imperial Gift of Northern Tibetan Buddhist Sutra" is the most complete preserved Ming Dynasty official plate engraved Buddhist scripture in China, and is a Buddhist art museum integrating architecture, sculpture, murals, carvings, scriptures, calligraphy, paintings, etc.
Wang Kang said that due to the age, the buildings, sculptures and murals in the Big Buddha Temple have suffered different degrees of damage, from 2005 to 2009, the local officials repaired and protected the cultural relics in the Big Buddha Temple, the murals in the Buddha Hall, the buildings, the ground, etc., which is the largest repair of the Big Buddha Temple in the past <> years.
"The Big Buddha Temple is more than 900 years old, just like an old man who has experienced many vicissitudes, he needs to grasp its health status at any time through digital monitoring, and even more needs to make it live and use through digital transformation." Wang Kang said that previously, the local official also invited the School of Architecture of Tianjin University to digitally scan the buildings, murals, color sculptures, etc. in the Dafo Temple, and the data modeling laid the foundation for subsequent digital protection applications.
The current digital protection project is scanning the data of wooden buildings in different periods of the ancient buildings of Dafo Temple, and in the future, all representative statues, murals, buildings, etc. in Dafo Temple will be digitally framed and entered, presenting the historical and cultural characteristics of Dafo Temple in a three-dimensional and multi-dimensional manner.
"Allowing visitors to learn about the past and present of Dafo Temple is the focus of this conservation project." Wang Kang said that the project will build a 350-square-meter digital exhibition hall to present visitors with the historical architectural layout of the Great Buddha Temple, animate the construction process of the reclining Buddha in the hall, as well as Buddhist scriptures, murals, Buddhist scripture stories, etc. in ancient texts, allowing the audience to experience the stories of the ancient Silk Road up close through immersive experiences.
Zhangye Big Buddha Temple was listed as a national key cultural relic protection unit by the State Council in 1996. As of March this year, the institute had also digitized more than 3,5300 scrolls in its collection. (End)