Patrick Comerford
The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple in the heart of Chinatown is one of the many eye-catching religious buildings I visited in Singapore. The temple is built in a style inspired by the Tang dynasty era in China and by the Mandala, a Buddhist symbol representing the universe. It is one of the most-visited sites of Buddhist tourism and pilgrimage in Singapore.
The colourful exterior of the temple has traditional ornate carvings and attractive colours in bright paint. Inside, the atmosphere is one of quiet reverence among worshippers and of awe among tourists.
The temple has many layers, with sacred halls, chambers and landscaped gardens and it offers a unique insight into the role Chinese Buddhism has played in the daily life of people in Singapore.
There are richly decorated interiors and a large array of exhibits and displays on Buddhist art, history and culture. Yet the temple on South Bridge Road is a recent addition to the streetscape of Chinatown. It was founded in 2002 by a Buddhist monk, the Venerable Shi Fa Zhao, with the support of the Singapore Tourist Board, and was built on the vacant Sago Lane site in 2007 at a cost of S$75 million.
The temple takes its name from what is said to be the left canine tooth of Buddha, recovered from his funeral pyre. The Buddha Tooth Relic is housed in a giant stupa weighing 3,500 kg and made from 320 kg of gold.
The tooth is said to have been discovered by the Venerable Cakkapala, the Abbot of the Bandula Monastery in Mrauk U in Myanmar (Burma) in 1980. When a collapsed stupa or relic building and a statue of Buddha were being restored, the Ven Cakkapala and his assistants were said to have found the tooth within a stupa of solid gold on Bagan Hill. The discovery was not publicised at the time and the tooth was enshrined at the Bandula Monastery.
When the Bandula Monastery was fundraising in January 2001, it appealed to the Veneable Shi Fazhao from the Golden Pagoda Temple in Singapore for financial support. Ven Shi agreed to help, and in August 2001 he visited the Bandula Monastery, where he formed a close relationship with the elderly Ven Cakkapala.
Ven Cakkapala visited Singapore in 2002, and visited the Golden Pagoda Temple and the Metta Welfare Association founded by Ven Shi. In August that year, two Buddha tooth relics, including the Bandula relic, were part of a three-day, S$1-million exhibition to mark the tenth anniversary of the Golden Pagoda Temple.
More than 300,000 people visited the exhibition, and it was announced that one of the tooth relics would remain at the Golden Pagoda Temple. Ven Cakkapala formally handed the Buddha tooth relic to Ven Shi, adding that a monastery should be built to house the relic and to welcome Buddhist pilgrims.
Ven Cakkapala died the following December. Ven Shi then withrew himself to a year-long retreat, returning with the inspiration to name the temple ‘Buddha Tooth Relic Temple’. He also decided that the temple’s architectural style would be based on a mandala or Buddhist diagram representing the universe, and incorporate Buddhist art from China’s Tang dynasty. The temple also displays some Japanese and Tibetan Buddhist influences.
Chinatown was chosen as the location for the new temple, with Ven Shi saying he hoped the temple would add to the vibrancy and heritage of the area. The project was supported by the Singapore Tourism Board, which said it would add to Chinatown’s appeal to tourists. Another exhibition featuring the tooth relic attracted 600,000 visitors in May 2004.
The temple signed a 30-year lease with the STB in January 2005 for the 2,700 sq metre vacant Sago Lane site on South Bridge Road. A three-week fundraising exhibition was held staged, and the temple began seeking donations and sponsorship for the construction, with parts of the building, including Buddha statues and images, roof tiles and bricks put up for sponsorship.
The temple also collected donations of gold that were melted down to build the stupa housing the tooth relic. About 83 kg of gold and S$10 million were donated in less than three months. By November 2006, another 1,700 kg of jewellery had been donated by 15,000 people, and by May 2007 S$43 million had been raised from more than 60,000 people.
To meet the final cost of S$75 million, including the lease, building, interior decoration and cost of the temple’s images and artefacts, the temple took out a S$22.8 million loan. Sections of the temple were briefly opened to the public in May 2007. The temple was fully completed a year later and the consecration took place on 17 May 2008.
An entry gate and courtyard, flanked by two towers, form the temple’s entrance at ground level. The first or ground floor has halls with various Buddha statues for ceremonies, prayer and offerings. The main hall, the Hundred Dragon Hall, is 27 ft high with a 15 ft statue of the Buddha Maitreya, with two bodhisattvas on each side. The statue of the Buddha sits on a throne in a bhadrasana posture, with each foot on top of a lotus flower.
The Universal Wisdom Hall has a statue of the Bodhisattva Guanyin sitting on an elaborate lotus throne and flanked by two vajra-wielding dharmapalas. The Heart Sutra, written in the Siddham script, is embroidered on the rear wall of the hall, along with embroidered patterns of lotuses waving in the breeze. The walls of the hall are adorned with shrines and statues of a grouping of eight Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Wisdom Kings, surrounded by smaller statues.
The mezzanine level houses the Eminent Sangha Museum, a gallery of prominent local and foreign monks, and the Ksitigarbha Hall for ancestral tablets. The second and third floors host a teahouse, shop and a museum, with displays of Asian Buddhist artefacts, including a chamber of Buddha relics.
The fourth storey holds the centrepiece of the temple: the Sacred Light Hall with the Buddha tooth relic. The relic is housed within a stupa made from 420 kg of gold, 234 kg of which was melted down from gold items donated by devotees. The monks who conduct daily services there are the only ones allowed into the relic chamber, bit visitors can view the relic chamber twice a day from the public viewing area.
I missed out this time on visiting the temple roof, a tranquil hideaway with more pagodas, pavilions and a garden, including the Dendrobium Buddha Tooth, an orchid named after the temple and relic, and a Buddhist prayer wheel.
The Ten Thousand Buddha Pagoda on the roof is a pavilion where about 11,111 Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are enshrined and venerated. At the centre of the pagoda is a large Vairocana Buddha Prayer Wheel, inspired by the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. More than 3,000 calligraphy copies of the Vairocana Mantra have been placed within the prayer wheel, and a statue of Vairocana is also enshrined within the pagoda.
The basement of the temple includes a theatre and a vegetarian dining hall.
The temple was embroiled in controversy before its launch in 2007, with media reports questioning the authenticity of the tooth relic. Dental experts were quoted as saying that the tooth’s long crown and short root were incompatible with the dimensions of a human tooth, and that the tooth likely belonged to an animal, probably a cow or buffalo. The length of the tooth was also said to be too long to have come from a human.
Ven Shi responded to the controversy, saying: ‘To me, it has always been real and I have never questioned its authenticity. They can say all they want. I don’t care what they say. If you believe it’s real, then it’s real.’
A number of letters to the press from devotees and donors expressed disappointment and called for the tooth to be authenticated. However, the temple rejected requests for DNA tests and Ven Shi said: ‘Each of us has different views on what is ‘real’, as it depends on each individual’s understanding of Buddhism. While we fully respect the opinions of others, we should stand firm on our own faith towards the sacred relics.’
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