Wednesday 1 March 2017

Temple of the (Buddha) Tooth, Singapore

This is a new temple (2005) built in Singapore's Chinatown to house, as the name suggests, this relic from the distant past.
Even though Buddha was supposed to have been cremated in 543BCE, one tooth was recovered form the funeral pyre by a disciple. Possession of this relic is supposed to endow the owner with "...the right to rule that land...". It is now widely accepted to be located in the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka.
The tooth in Chinatown was supposed to have been discovered in a collapsed stupa in Myanmar in 1980. There seems to be no actual evidence that this canine is related to the late Buddha in any way but it has not stopped Singapore spending $62 million dollars to house it. There are bits of Buddha's tooth in several other temples, in different countries around the globe...
As you can see in this HDR image, the inside is quite impressive.
The outside on the other hand, looks more East European, than Oriental.
Monk during a service in the Temple of the Tooth, Chinatown.
(HDR) dragon detail, Temple of the Tooth, Singapore

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