The Two Kings Temple, a 1,500-year-old Taoist sanctuary perched above Dujiangyan, was devastated by the recent earthquake in Sichuan. A monument to the temple’s patron deity was split at the waist.
DUJIANGYAN, China — The whoosh of the Min River, roiling through the valley below, drifted up the mountain. A breeze jostled the leaves of ancient ginkgoes. Here and there, the whine of a distant siren pierced the tranquillity.
The only other sound was the clatter of broken roof tiles underfoot as Wang Zhongcheng picked through the remnants of Two Kings Temple, a 1,500-year-old Taoist sanctuary perched above this city. All around him was an astounding scene of destruction: giant bronze incense burners shattered by falling masonry; an ancient pagoda obliterated; a monument to the temple’s patron deity — said to be one of China’s oldest stone statues — fractured at the waist.

“I think the heavens were teaching us a lesson,” said Mr. Wang, 36, one of the monastery’s resident monks. “This is what happens when the world is out of balance.”

The earthquake that struck Sichuan Province on May 12 killed at least 55,000 people and injured 247,000. More than five million are homeless.

But the catastrophe that destroyed so many lives has also taken a toll on a region rich in antiquities. Here along the quilt of jagged peaks that stretch north toward the Tibetan plateau, 184 historic sites were damaged or destroyed in the span of five minutes, according to a preliminary government tally. The home of Li Bai, one of China’s most revered poets, was shaken apart. An 800-year-old wooden pagoda in Jiangyou was badly damaged. In a far corner of the province, a centuries-old Tibetan Buddhist shrine in Nyitso was jolted off its foundation.

At the sprawling Two Kings monastery, built to honor an engineer who created a vast flood-control system in 256 B.C. and now a Unesco World Heritage site, the annihilation was nearly complete. The steep stone footpaths have been heaved apart and all that remains of the gift shop is a tangle of ancient timber, dented Coke cans and dust-covered postcards.

Despite the enormous human needs facing millions of survivors, Wang Qiong, an official from the Sichuan Cultural Relics Administration, said he was optimistic the complex would be restored within three years. “I think the state government as well as society will give financial support,” he said in an interview.

Mr. Wang, the monk, was not nearly so optimistic. “It will take a lifetime,” he said.

Although the Two Kings Temple has been modified and rebuilt many times, historians believe it was begun about A.D. 500, a few hundred years after Li Bing finished the ambitious weir that tamed the Min River, a tributary of the Yangtze that in the spring would regularly drown thousands in the Chengdu basin. The system of dikes and canals, lionized by China as the world’s oldest functioning flood-control system, remains a marvel of ancient engineering.

With the Min’s destructive flow tamed, thousands of acres of marshland were transformed into the nation’s granary, all of it nourished by a plentiful supply of diverted river water. “His accomplishment will be remembered for 10,000 generations,” reads the tribute carved into a temple gate that poked above the rubble.

For generations, the temple has been maintained by the monks, many of whom come from nearby Mount Qingcheng, the birthplace of Taoism. Theirs is a life of prayer, quiet contemplation and the slow-motion exercise known as Tai Chi Chuan. As vegetarians who lead ascetic lives, many of the monks and nuns say they have a conflicted relationship with the outside world, even if they must rely on busloads of tourists for their income.

In recent years, Taoists have waged a legal battle against provincial officials who have sought greater control over the site. Mr. Wang said the state now takes most of the profit, forcing the monks to largely rely on the sale of home-cooked vegetarian meals for their livelihood. “They know there is profit to be made here,” he said of the government.

As they sat around the ruins drinking tea and reading religious texts, members of the order talked about the earthquake as retribution for humanity’s misplaced priorities. Zhong Zongji, 38, a nun in a navy blue robe, said the symptoms were plainly visible in Dujiangyan, a city of 600,000 whose residents, she said, were too obsessed with chasing money to notice the beauty and sanctity of the natural world. “They have good material lives but they are empty inside,” she said, sitting near the row of tents that is now home to the temple’s 20 resident Taoists.

As she spoke, a low-pitched rumble could be heard in the distance. It was a backhoe, futilely picking through the shell of a factory dormitory that had crumbled, trapping dozens of people. Farther down the hill, hundreds more remained buried in debris. All over the city, families were mourning their dead.

A tourist was killed by a falling wall here, but everyone else survived with minor scrapes. Two days before the ground shook, Ai Zongling said, she had a premonition that something terrible was going to happen. She woke up dizzy on the day of the quake and felt inexplicably drawn to the monastery’s biggest structure, one of the few religious buildings to escape complete destruction. “I felt in my heart I would be safe there,” she said.

Many of the men and women who live at Two Kings view the earthquake as a comeuppance for man’s endless wars, the neglect of the elderly, the abuse of the environment. “You can’t keep cutting down the trees and destroying the land without a response from the heavens,” said Ms. Ai, as the daylight faded and the monks and nuns retreated to their tents.

Still, she said she thought some good might come from the calamity. Down in the city, she had been moved by the sight of strangers helping one another. Perhaps people will learn what she and the other Taoist devotees view as the elements of a harmonious life: self-discipline, kindness and the pursuit of simplicity. “Maybe people will learn that you cannot keep living a corrupted life without consequences,” she said. “Maybe this earthquake can redeem us.”


转自纽约时报