Hsuan Tsang Temple Introduction
Continue west along the lakeside highway for about 4.8 kilometers, and you will reach Hsuan Tsang Temple. Master Hsuan Tsang was a high monk of the Tang Dynasty. Feeling that the translated scriptures at the time differed greatly, leaving people confused, he sought to discover the true meaning of Buddhism. In defiance of the prohibitions of his era, he overcame numerous challenges and traveled to India to obtain scriptures, returning after seventeen years with 657 books and translating 75 of them with his disciples, totaling 1,335 volumes, making significant contributions to the development of Buddhism in China. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese took Master Hsuan Tsang's skull relic from Nanjing and enshrined it at the Wajiro-ji Temple in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. In 1955, the relic was brought to Taiwan and temporarily enshrined at the Hsuan Guang Temple by Sun Moon Lake; after the completion of Hsuan Tsang Temple in November 1965, the relic was transferred there. Hsuan Tsang Temple is constructed in the Tang-style architectural design, featuring green tiles and red columns, simple and unadorned, surrounded by a tranquil environment that embodies the elegance of a Chinese garden. It faces Sun Moon Lake to the front and is backed by Qingshan, and geomancers consider this site to be "Qinglong Playing with Pearls," making it the best location for enshrining Hsuan Tsang's skull relic. The Hsuan Tsang Cultural and Relic Memorial Hall was opened for public viewing on March 28, 2014.
