Emperor's Tomb | Han Yangling Museum

Immediately after the tour of the Wild Goose Pagoda, we rushed to see the famous Han Yangling museum. This is located in the northern part of the city , on the banks of the Wei river.

This place has the tomb of the Emperor Jingdi and his wife Empress Wang. It is said that this tomb was constructed over a period of 28 years!!

There are 81 burial pits around the Emperor's tomb.The pits display clay warriors, maidens, animals, utensils which tells us about the royal life as well as the life of the ordinary people of the Han Dynasty.It is an underground museum and we can see the relics standing on the 'glass floor' built above the buried treasure. It was an unique experience indeed.

 You have to pay an entrance fee to enter the underground museum. It is one of the places worth visiting in Xian.....

If you are lucky, you can catch the 3D/ laser show about the Emperor that was really breath taking. Photography is not allowed in that theater. The play is in Chinese but they provide you with recorded translators with headphones so that you can enjoy the show in your preferred language.

Now for the tour.....

The map at the entrance

The Emperor's tomb

The Nanque Gate

The entrance to the burial pit

The path leading to the underground museum

Some inscriptions on the wall

The floor plan at the entrance of the underground tomb

The relics can be viewed from the glass 'floor' that is constructed above the area where the relics are buried. It was such a different experience!

One of the pits with clay pottery

The pit with clay animals

 One of the pit with human figurines 

In most of the pits, the figurines and pottery have remained intact while the excavation process was carried out. SOme have been destroyed though as you can see above. 

The famous horse drawn chariot

Male and female figurines have a clear distinction....

When the clay dolls were buried, they were dressed like the one above. But as the years passed the cloth got 'eaten away' and now only the raw structure remains

Another display of the male figurine in costume

The close up of the chariot

A display with the figurines as they were buried with the costume and how they are seen today

Some of the weapons and utensils that were buried here

A closer look...

The terracotta horses

The terracotta dogs

A display with all the animals - horse, dog, hen and pig

The cow

Some of the utensils that were buried 

The utensils recovered during excavation stacked up 

Just like the lucky tortoise in Qingdao, we tried our luck here if we could touch the dragons head through the small hole on the side and place money. And yes, we could!!! Aren't we lucky!!

The souvenir shop at the exit sells replicas of the terracotta articles as seen inside. They were pretty expensive

Some of the other items in the shop for sale

My ever favorite chopsticks were sold there. I saw ones in jade, soap stone, bamboo...

Isn't it a lovely sunset! Yes, it is.. But not a real one. It's a painting on the way out!!

We walked out from the semi darkness into the evening sun and got ready to leave.....

The refreshment stand was long closed and we were the last to leave the place....

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The first day of of tour in Xi'an came to an end. We wanted to rest but still we had to finish off dinner. SO we headed to a hotpot restaurant and enjoyed a nice meal. Later that evening, though we were dead tired, we freshened up and went for a walk to the bell tower. We wanted to experience the city at night. The roads were busy with a lot of tourists and some locals going around.We did some shopping and tried some local vegetarian street foods. We returned around midnight to catch up with our beauty sleep. There was a busy day ahead the following day........

Till we meet again, take care...

Wild Goose Pagoda # 2

In the previous post we saw a few places in the Wild goose Pagoda. Here are the rest of the places.....

We were told that the entrance to this hall leads to the Monastery where students are taken in to learn Buddhism.This Buddha looks a lot different from the other Buddha statue- looks like he is in penance..We were not allowed to enter into this hall. Hence clicked from outside.

The Avalokiteshvara Hall

Avalokiteshvara or Guan Yin, one of the four Chinese Bodhi SattVas, is well known for her mercy and Kindness, who is the embodiment of truth, good and beauty. She has received the worship of all teh people and has become a ever lasting culture of believing in Avalokiteshvara.

Guan Shi Yin  is the full name of Guan Yin, also called Guan Zi Zai, Guan Shi Zi Zhai and Avalokiteshvara is her name in Sanskrit which means carrying the sufferings of all flesh in earth.

Guan Shi Yin is are the words chanted by the great wise Anasrava Bodhisatva when he saw the sufferings of all flesh on the Earth.

The Lotus Sutra- The universal door of Avalokitesvara Boshisatva tells teh reason why Guan Shi Yin got the name. It says the Buddha told infinite resolve Bodhisatva if people who suffered a lot called the name of Guan Shi Yin , she would come to help them relieve. It can be seen that Guan Shi Yin is the embodiment of great mercy of Bodhisatva to the people on Earth.

That's MIL, P and one of hubby's colleague in the Avalokiteshvara Hall

Way to another part of the monastery.

The next stop was the Xuanzang Tripataka Temple...

Xuanzang Tripataka Temple was built to commemorate Xuanzang's great achievement , which consists of which consists of three parts: Bright Hall, Perfect enlightenment Hall, BoRe hall, which are the display of Xuanzang's great achievement in life.

The hall name Bright hall shows Xuanzangs birth, pravrajana, determination to the west for Buddhist Sutra, his sufferings during the travel and finally becoming a well known dignitary.

Rabbi Xuanzang [960 - 664] , was born in Weishi, Henan Louzhou. His family name was Chen and his given name was Wei.When he was 13 years old, he became a monk and when he was 29 years old, he went to the west for buddhist Sutra and finally he came back at the age of 46.

Here are some clicks taken in this temple...

A portion of the roof - exquisite isn't it!!!!

A part of the sculpture on the wall....

A section of the paining that shows Zuanxangs's journey...

The Wild Goose Pagoda...

The Wild Goose Pagoda taken clicked from the courtyard

Taken from another angle...

We did not climb the pagoda. Instead we went to the souvenir shop and walked around the courtyard and the gardens....

One of the paintings that was on sale....

 Inside the shop. You can shop for artifacts. There are statues, paintings, jade jewellery and books on sale here.

This one is situated within the courtyard and not the one found at the entrance....

The staffs here give you a card stamped with the Zodiac symbol corresponding to your year of birth. All of us got one..

We came outside to wander in the garden.. Look how serene the place looks....

The statue of a Golden Buddha

A Bodhisattva in the Temple Gardens

Some of the Stupas...

The huge bell at the entrance to the Pagoda...

Even the table and chairs near a refreshment bar is artistically sculpted!!!

We spent nearly 2 hours at this place and I felt we could have spent a lot more time here visiting the other places that we had missed. But our guide assured us that we had seen all the important halls here..

As we left the Wild Goose pagoda, I clicked this snap of Hubby standing near the statue of Xuanzang and the Pagoda visible in the background...

The time was around 4pm and Kelly, our guide,wanted to take us to another historical site that was just a  a few minutes travel the Wild Goose Pagoda...

So see you all in the next post where we shall be visiting  the Emperors tomb...

 Take care until then...