Is anything sacred anymore?

John was disheartened to find that many ancient shrines and temples have been overrun by cheap souvenir hawkers

October 26, 1999
Web posted at: 2:26 p.m. EDT (1826 GMT)

By John Fox

In the last few days I've visited some of the most important Buddhist cities and shrines in Western China. I've climbed to the tops of ancient walls and stared into the face of Buddha in a cave. I've also stepped over broken bottles and seen names carved into temples and once-holy shrines overrun by cheap souvenir hawkers.

I grew up Catholic and since then have respected places where people worship, or once worshipped. For me, ancient ruins are like churches. Generations of people were born and buried there. They still feel inhabited somehow by the spirits of those people, and for me that makes them sacred.

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My first stop was the ancient city of Gaochang. It was one of the largest cities and most important centers of Buddhism on the northern Silk Road. That was more than a thousand years ago. Today, crumbling walls and the mounds of tombs stretch out as far as the eye can see.

It was nice to find that these graceful arched doorways were still standing in the city of Gaochang

The city is over three km. across, but little of its original splendor remains. The earthen buildings have all fallen and melted over the centuries, making them look like eroded sandcastles on the beach. In rooms that once may have housed Buddhist monks, arched doorways still stood. Broken bottles and toilet paper littered the corners.

Paintings from here, now mostly carried away by Europeans, show processions of rich merchants and monks paying reverence to images of Buddha. Chinese texts name specific people and events. Despite the detailed records of Silk Road travelers and history, not one Chinese account even mentions Marco Polo, a man who supposedly served in the Emperor's court for 17 years! Hmm...

No sooner had I walked in the entrance of Gaochang than a guy thrust in my face a plastic statue of Buddha that looked like a McDonald's "Happy Meal" toy!

"Hello, cheap!" he offered.

Cheap was right.

Along with the silk and spices and other goods that traveled the Silk Road came religion. Buddhism began in India over 2,500 years ago and gradually spread out from there, reaching Western China by the 3rd century. Buddhists stress the need to escape the cycles of death and rebirth in order to achieve "nirvana," or Enlightenment. The key is overcoming worldly desires.

Marco Polo called the Buddhists he encountered "Idolaters" because they worshipped the image of Buddha. As an old-fashioned Christian, he didn't have much time for Buddhists or Muslims and didn't really understand the nature of their religions very well. Like so many other Europeans who came before and after, he passed judgment on other cultures and religions at the drop of a hat!

By sunset, we'd made our way into a hidden valley, miles from town, where we'd heard there were painted Buddhist caves. We searched for hours before finally seeing the holes in the cliffs. There, In the deep recesses of one cave we found 1,300-year-old paintings that repeated the image of a seated Buddha, wallpaper-like. I looked closer with my flashlight, and realized to my horror that the faces of each Buddha had been scratched off. Muslims were probably to blame. They tried to destroy all traces of Buddhism as they swept into China. Clearly, Marco Polo wasn't the first bigot, and vandalism wasn't an invention of the 20th century!

As I sat on the cliff, feeling depressed about the state of these ruins and paintings and wondering why people had to be so destructive, I caught a glimpse of the fiery sun nestling behind a canyon crevice. Far below, the sound of a trickling stream calmed me, completing a picture of nature in its perfection.

Maybe Enlightenment is still possible, I thought. Maybe some things will always be sacred.

Yours in ruins,

John Fox