In Hanshan, in the Buddhist temple under construction and in the completed hall, craftsmen boarded the scaffolding and began to "assemble" the Buddha statue.

Next to him, Li Li, Zhang Ying and others wearing rattan safety helmets, watched the construction of the Buddha statue.

Li Li was not interested in the Buddhist temple and did not intend to build a Buddhist temple in Hanshan, because the government did not have spare money.

However, officials and people need Buddhist temples, and many officials have also written letters and petitioned, asking the public to allow the public to raise funds to build Buddhist temples on their own.

Seeing that the officials and the people were devoted to the Buddha, Li Li simply followed the situation and the state government came forward to mobilize manpower and material resources to build an official temple to dominate the development of Buddhist temples in Xuzhou.

Moreover, he personally designed the layout of the Buddhist temple.

The core of the Buddhist temple is the main hall and the Buddha statues in the main hall. This Buddha statue must be tall and solemn, so it cannot be small in size.

According to the practice of those big temples in Jiankang, Buddha statues must be cast in copper, which can consume more than 100,000 kilograms of copper.

Li Li would never waste copper so much. The Buddha statue he designed himself must be "high and mighty", but the cost is not high, and it is easy to build, maintain, and not easy to damage.

Therefore, the construction process and materials are very special.

Zhang Ying looked at the construction diagram and looked at the Buddha statues that were being built in front of him. He felt ridiculous and ridiculous: Is this a Buddha statue or a chimney?

"Li's statue creation method", the first step: build a skeleton.

First, dig a hole in the standing image position, and then use bricks to build the "base". The base is lower than the ground and is square, leaving a deep square hole in the middle.

Secondly, a cast iron rod is erected in the center of the base, with the same height as the Buddha statue, and the bottom of the base is deeply inserted into the square hole reserved in the center of the base.

The reason why it is called "iron rod" is because it is thin and high, and cannot be called a pillar.

Third, use bricks to build a "chimney" with iron rods as the center.

The "chimney" is a cylinder, thick at the bottom and thin at the top, just like a smoke exhaust chimney in a brick field. The height of this "chimney" is slightly lower than that of the Buddha statue (iron rod).

The diameters of each part of the "chimney" are slightly thinner than the "diameter" of the Buddha statue.

During the construction of the "chimney", the connection with the central iron rod should be increased at several appropriate heights to serve as support, especially the "shoulder" position of the Buddha statue.

This is the 'skeleton' of the Buddha statue.

Step 2: ‘Put meat’.

First, we put a circle of iron hoops at different heights outside the "chimney". There are many protrusions outside the iron hoop, like hooks.

Secondly, a large number of prefabricated wooden structure components are "assembled" on this "chimney" to form the "muscles" and "clothing" of the body part of the Buddha statue.

The single wooden structure is not big. After being put together, the muscles and clothing lines formed are very delicate and vivid because they are wood carvings.

Third, connect the Buddha statue with "arms", and its shoulders are fixed to the opposite position of the "chimney", and are connected to the iron rod in the center of the "chimney".

The "arms" are made of wooden, lifted forward, make various gestures, and the weight is shared by the chimney and iron rods.

Step 3: Connector.

The face and head (front) of the Buddha statue are made with molds, like iron surfaces, and then installed on the top of the Buddha statue, and the back of the head is spliced ​​with wooden components.

Therefore, the "Buddha head" is actually hollow, and its lower part is carried by the mouth of the "chimney", and the inside of the "Buddha head" is fixed with the iron rod in the center of the "chimney".

The "circle" behind the head of the Buddha statue, namely the "body light", is composed of wood carvings, fixed on the top of the "chimney", and is also connected to the iron rod.

Step 4: Paint and color.

This step is relatively simple, which is to paint the "wooden shell" of the Buddha statue to prevent waterproof, crack, mothproof, and then apply color.

The entire statue making process is not very complicated and the construction is convenient, because all wooden parts are made in advance according to the "standard Buddha statue" and have various patterns, so you only need to assemble and then slightly trim on site.

The Buddha statues made are no different from ordinary Buddha statues after coloring, but they are simple to construct (relatively), not expensive to build, and are also convenient to maintain.

Once a fire occurs accidentally, the Buddha statue will be ignited, and only the wooden "patch" is damaged. Just replace the new wooden parts.

Zhang Ying thought that the Buddha statue created in this way should be durable and easy to maintain, but it felt strange to create it like this.

"Buddha statues, as long as they are meaningful, they don't have to be cast in copper." Li Li said slowly, "Everyone came to the temple and worshiped Buddha statues. As for the Buddha statues as clay sculptures, wood carvings, stone carvings, copper castings or gold stickers, is it related?"

"The clay-shaped Buddha statues are the cheapest to build, but the movements are not vivid enough and the details are not obvious. The wooden-carved Buddha statues are prone to fire. It is better to try the new statue method."

"If it's right, then it can be promoted, no"

As Li Li talked, he laughed, and Zhang Ying and others could only laugh.

After all, it was a Buddhist temple built by the state government and Li Envoy designed it himself, so it was hard for others to disappoint you, right?

Li Li turned around and left, looking at the busy construction site, he felt helpless: In this era, all walks of life generally believe in Buddhism, so there must be Buddhist temples in Hanshan City (North and South City), otherwise people will be uneasy.

After all, for many people, Buddhist temples are still a place for spiritual sustenance.

People are divided into noble and low, so there cannot be only one Buddhist temple. Li Li feels that since it cannot be blocked, he will guide and manage it, formulate a series of management measures, and strictly manage the Buddhist temples that will inevitably appear in Hanshan City.

The practice of believers stolen houses for temples is not accepted, even if this practice is very popular among wealthy families, this move can control the explosive growth of small temples.

Monks in Buddhist temples have post restrictions and must be registered and the government will issue "Certificate" to regularly assess monks to avoid mermaids and fish.

The posts that are ordained in each Buddhist temple must first apply to the government. Temples without ordained posts shall not be ordained, and believers can only be lay Buddhists at home.

There may be hired workers in Buddhist temples, but there are no slaves. The government does not recognize the master-servant relationship between Buddhist temples and slaves.

Buddhist temples can have fields, but they must be registered in the public hall. According to the monk's number, there can be corresponding tax-free fields, which is considered as the guarantee of self-sufficiency of the temple. Fields exceeding the limit must be paid taxes.

The size of Buddhist temples is limited. Apart from the necessary venues and dormitories, the extra houses and buildings must be paid for property tax.

Buddhist temples are not allowed to operate residences or quality warehouses. If you obtain a franchise license, you can lend money.

However, the interest rate must be within the amount specified by the government. The government will not recognize the loan deeds that exceed the interest rate, and the temple will not allow this loan to be used to collect debts.

Buddhist temples can open workshops, produce and sell various Buddhist utensils, and open restaurants to provide vegetarian food to believers.

Buddhist temples can adopt orphans, and the public government allocates money and grain regularly according to the number of adopters. This is to make the Buddhist temple bear the responsibilities of social welfare institutions.

In short, Li Li chose to strengthen management and limit the number and scale of temples and monks, and not allow temples to have privileges, such as not paying rent in temple fields, not serving labor, and not paying taxes in operations of temple properties.

Without these privileges, the operating cost is enough to suppress the "cancer cell-like spreading and development" of Buddhist temples.

Buddhist temples only do what the temple should do, and cannot compete with the government for population or labor. Therefore, monks must "take the job with certificates" (certificate) and must not ordain the people at will.

Buddhist temples can have a certain ability to self-sufficiency, but they cannot lend money without permission, and they cannot lend usury, have privileges, and cannot compete with the government for tax sources and poach the country's fences.

Li Li believes that if these two things can be achieved and persisted for a long time, the Buddhist temples of this era will become a secular social institution like those of later generations, rather than a cancer of the country.

However, this is just a treatment of symptoms and root causes, to improve the lives of the people and allow the people to live with dignity in this life. So who will still place hope on the cultivation of the next life?

This is difficult to achieve, so for rulers, it is not as cost-effective as worshipping Buddha on a large scale.

Isn’t it good to paralyze the people, let them bear exploitation and exploitation in this life, and place hope in the next life?

However, this practice is just to deceive oneself. People who cannot survive will not sit still and wait for death.

Li Li walked out of the Buddhist temple and looked back at the formed Buddhist temple. He felt quite touched and felt that it was hard to describe it.

There are 480 temples in the Southern Dynasties, how many towers are in the mist and rain?

But now there are more than 480 Buddhist temples in Jiankang City.
Chapter completed!