TWO LOTUS FLOWERS ON ONE STALK | 并蒂莲：西藏和康提

并 蒂 莲 | 中国西藏和斯里兰卡康提 

“ 康提是这个美丽岛屿最受游客喜欢的城市之一，以供奉佛牙舍利的佛牙寺而举世闻名，每年吸引大量 中国游客参观，是全世界佛教徒膜拜的圣地。而在中国西藏，也有一座世界上海拔最高、最雄伟的 宫殿和朝圣地：布达拉宫。”

Sri Lanka is one of the most romantic destinations in the world. The land of serendipity brings spiritual tranquility and a chance to rediscover oneself. At the first sight of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic you would be deeply touched, not only for the grandness of the temple, but also the full-hearted pray of people. It’s a miracle place to gain your inner peace. 

Kandy is one of the favorite cities of all visitors to this beautify island. Famous blogger Yang Shiyuan has published many articles about Kandy and introduced it to the Chinese. Kandy is famous for the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic which houses the relic of the tooth of the Buddha. The Temple attracts a large number of tourists from China every year. It is a national treasure and a sacred place of worship for Buddhists the world over. There are many Buddhists in China and they view the great Kandy Perahera held in July and August every year with much interest. It includes dancers, drummers, torch bearers and other traditional performers and has over 100 elephants adorned in festive costumes. “Extraordinary and magnificent, this is the grandest Buddhist festival in the world,” said by many followers of Yang Shiyuan’s blog commenting on her perahera photographs in the blog.

The reason that the Temple has remained in this status is because of the patronage of the Sri Lankan people and government. 

Thousands of miles away from Sri Lanka in the Himalayas termed as the roof of the world, there is another kind of Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism. The Potala Palace, a Tibetan Buddhist pilgrim site, is one that is venerated similar to the Temple of the Tooth Relic in Sri Lanka. In 1994, the Potala Palace was included to the World Heritage List. Since picture taking is prohibited at the Palace, it is shrouded in mystery. 

In 1645, Losang Gyatso, the fifth Dalai Lama, organized the reconstruction of the Potala Palace. After hundreds of years of continuous construction and renovation, the Potala Palace has come to be what it is today. From the plan view, the palaces are composed of many rectangular houses with a complicated structure. From the vertical view, these houses are of different heights and placed in picturesque disorder, with distinct differences between main and ancillary buildings. The exterior of the complex is painted in red, white and yellow, symbolizing majesty, tranquility and completion. The colors and styles exhibit distinctive Tibetan Buddhist characteristics. 

The Potala Palace has become a sacred site of Tibetan Buddhists, which is inseparable from the continuous protection and renovation by Chinese people and the Government. 

Over the recent years, the Chinese Government has conducted registration of movable cultural relics in the palaces and compiled a Tibetan Chinese bilingual record of them with 14 items, including the date, source, external dimensions and degree of completeness. Some 40,000-odd Buddha figures, 26,000-odd cultural relics in the palaces, and 2,000-odd thangkas have been digitally archived. 

There are nearly 40,000 ancient books and manuscripts written in Chinese, Tibetan, Manchu, Mongolian and Sanskrit on registration in the Potala Palace. 

Modern technology has been used to assist the Potala Palace to expand its cultural heritage exhibition and utilization space.