Buddha's parietal-bone relic flown back to Nanjing

Macao, May 4 (Xinhua-ANI): After a 10-day tour in Hong Kong and Macao, the parietal bone of Sakyamuni, founder of Buddhism, was flown back to Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province from Macao on Friday.

The parietal-bone relic left the Macao International Airport by a chartered plane at 12:00 a.m., making it a great success that for the first time the parietal bone was worshipped outside the Chinese mainland.

On Friday morning, a grand ceremony was held in the Macao East Asian Games Dome, where the remains had been enshrined for five days. Over 1,000 people attended the ceremony, including eminent Buddhist monks from the mainland and Macao.

During the 5-day public obeisance in Macao, more than 140 thousand Buddhist devotees have paid homage to the sacred relic.

The worship event is being jointly hosted by the Buddhist Association of China, the Hong Kong Buddhist Association, an organizing committee in Macao and the Buddhist Association of Jiangsu.

The parietal bone of Sakyamuni had been unearthed in 2008 when archaeologists discovered unexpectedly a crypt in the ruins of the Changgan Temple which was built in Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279) during the excavation works at the Nanjing Grand Bao'en Temple. (Xinhua-ANI)