Tips for Visiting Temples in Silk Road
Along the Silk Road, you will pass several temples, such as Great Mosque and Famen Temple in Xian; Labrang Lamasery in Lanzhou; Dongguan Mosque andTaer Monastery in Xining; and Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar.
When traveling along the Silk Road, a temple is often an important spot visited by travelers. There are some important things to remember in order to ensure a pleasant visit to the temples.
A Proper Address of a Monk
‘Shi’ or ‘Fashi’ is an honorable title of the Monks and Taoists, and ‘Zhaolao’, ‘Fangzhang’ or ‘Chanshi’ of the Governing Monk. ‘Heshang’ and ‘Chujiaren’ are regarded as the impolite way to address a Monk.
Proper Manners and Behaviours
1. If you meet a monk, don't get in his way or take or surpass him. Put your palms together and lower your head when meeting with the monks. Attempting to handshake, embrace or touch the head of the monk is considered sacrilegious.
2. Before you worship Buddha, you should cleanse your body. You'd better not eat garlic, onion, fish, meat, wine, or chew betel nut, smoke.A mouthful of the stinky smell is is pretty disrespectful to the buddhas and bodhisattvas.
3. To enter the buddhist temple,the side entrance, especially the left oneis the most appropriate instead of the middle gate.
4. When pray the Buddha, you should throw yourself down at your feet in admiration.
5. When walking in the temple, do not touch or deface any religious artifacts, and be silent and nonjudgemental during religious ceremonies. At the same time, take care of your children so as not to be rude to the buddha.
Proper Dressing
In the temple, the clothes should be neat and simple. No matter how hot the weather is, don't wear clothes that are too revealing.
Boys should not wear shorts or vest. At least a half-sleeve shirt.
Girls should not wear dress or cloth with shoulder-straps. Miniskirts are improper, either. No sandals and all the other kinds of shoes which reveal toes.
Topics of Conversation
Topics relating to killings, marriage and eating meat are forbidden.
Other Issues
Q: Can pregnant women worship Buddha?
A: Yes. It is a superstition that pregnant women cannot worship Buddha.
Q: Can menstruating woman worship Buddha?
A: Yes. There is no taboo for this. Buddhism doesn't have this theory, it's a folk belief, it's not worth believing. We have never seen a nun leave the temple, right?
Started from the ancient China capital city Changan (Xian at present), the Silk Route stretches more than 7000 kilometres reaching the Mediterranean bank. The route was first created by an envoy called Zhangqian assigned by the Emperor of the Han Dynasty to deliver gifts which were mainly silk to those local regimes in the past West China, to hold their loyalty and to be allies of the Han Dynasty. Since the Chinese highly qualified silk had made its fame to the western countries, the merchants sought the opportunity of trading Chinese silk along this route and gained a great fortune. Few people would really finish the whole silk route journey rather they just mainly traded in a certain period of certain local crafts such as silk, blanket and carpet etc to other merchants of other periods. Each time everybody marked the price up along the way. In the end, silk, perfume, jade and sliver from China, cotton from India, ivory from Saudi Arabic, spicy from Iran and olive oil and wine from Mediterranean bank were all traded along the Silk Road. Thousands and thousands people have taken part and numerous goods traded in this great international trade at that time. The main cities along the Silk Road had grown larger and more important in helping the trade and merchant and caravans. Cities like Changan, Dunhuang, Kashgar, Istanbul and Rome had gained great benefits along the trading process.
Today, Chinese president Xi Jinping has announced to invest 14 billion dollars to boost the new Silk Road program which has a rather poetic name called One Belt One Road. It is more like a modern version of the ancient Silk Road, call it the “Silk Road Plus” if you are an Apple fan. The “One Belt One Road” is aiming to help those connected regions in culture and economy exchange with a more advance road net work consisted by airplanes, railways, high ways and even container ships.
While the ancient Silk Road today is rather a historical travel route on which you can experience interesting history and enjoy exotic culture. The Chinese section Silk Road stretches more than 4,000km on the gigantic regions of northwester China, an almost dizzying agglomeration of desert, grassland, raging river and colossal mountains. The best highlights are a series of historical towns, ruins and cultural sites linked as a chain of pearls which are Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an, the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, the Qinghai Lake in Xining, the Heaven Lake in Urumqi, the Gaochang Ancient City in Turpan, etc. There are also several ethnic groups regions along the silk route such as Mongolians, Huis, Uygurs and Hazaks who have maintained their unique traditions, cultures, living habits and religious beliefs embodying the culture exchange soul spirits of the Silk Road. All these magnificent ancient towns fulfilled with exotic cultures and mysterious history is waiting to present you a splendid Silk Road journey! Pack your baggage! Join us to trace the footprints of ancient travelers and create a unique Silk Road journey of your own!! Following are our detailed introduction, most read travel tips and best collection of Silk Road Tour Packages which are highly valuable, enjoyable and customizable!
