Huong Dao Buddhist Temple Begins US$100 Million Expansion
Sunday, 15 May was an auspicious day for the members of Huong Dao, a Buddhist temple in Fort Worth, Texas. They laid the first stone of a 5.7-hectare expansion that is expected to cost US$100 million to complete. The new construction will include 840 stupas that will house various Buddhist teachings.
The expansion project has been named “The Ancient Sacred Buddhist Scripture Stupas” project in honor of the many stupas that will be built.
All of the stupas will be constructed using granite and steel, and they will store teachings from the Tipitaka, the “Triple Basket” of the Pali Canon, which consist of a collection of the Buddha’s discourses, the monastic code of conduct (Vinaya), and the Abhidhamma, a collection of canonical texts.
The teachings will be translated into the languages of six countries, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam, and carved into slabs made of stone and bronze.
Some of the stupas will stand as high as 40 meters, making them visible far from the temple. According to the temple website:
The construction project of the 840 large and small Stupas is symbolic of the 84,000 Dhamma (Dhammakkhandhas or Khandhas), which are the teachings of the Great Enlightened One. They are the profound, pure, and practical truth, the message of Compassion, Wisdom, and Liberation that had, are, and will send [sic] to all sentient beings for more than 25 centuries. They will continue to be passed down to our posterity the invaluable, ever-lasting treasures of Dhamma for generations to come.
(Chua Huong Dao)
