Stephanie interned as a science writer at Stanford University Medical School, and also interned at ScienceNow magazine and the Santa Cruz Sentinel. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
While some mourn and offer a helping hand after a tragedy, others point fingers, showing no empathy.
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In the aftermath of the death of a 2-year-old boy who was drowned by an alligator at a Disney resort in Florida, much of the public response has been sympathetic. But not all of it: Sprinkled across social media, online comments and even whisperings you may hear at the water cooler, some individuals are instead pointing fingers, blaming the parents.
Is this a sign of the times? Is parenting shame on the rise and empathy taking a dive?
Research says maybe so. The brain is wired for empathy, but it's also wired for moral judgments. And some facets of modern American culturemay push people away from the former and toward the latter.
The blame game
Beneath any given online article about the alligator attack, there are at least a few comments questioning the child's parents. The theme persists on the Twitter hashtag #DisneyGatorAttack.
"People are blaming an alligator for being an alligator, when the real issue here is child negligence. Watch your child," Tweeted a user with the handle @nuffsaidNY.
Ubiquitous reports that the child's parents were right next to him — and that the father struggled to pull open the alligator's jaws to save his child — seem not to put a damper on the judgments. A similar pattern occurred in late May after a preschooler slipped away from his mother and fell into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. The child survived, but zoo officials had to shoot the gorilla, resulting in calls for the parents to be prosecuted.
In response to the blame has come a backlash. Melissa Fenton, a writer for the parenting site Scary Mommy, wrote a plea for compassion on Facebook, arguing that in the past, child-in-peril stories engendered support, not judgment. [5 Ways to Foster Self-Compassion in Your Child]
"We now live in a time where accidents are not allowed to happen. You heard me. Accidents, of any form, in any way, and at any time, well, they just don't happen anymore," Fenton wrote. "Why? Because BLAME and SHAME."
Empathy and judgment
Empathy is the ability to put oneself in another person's emotional shoes. This ability is baked into people's moral reasoning, even at the level of brain anatomy, science shows. Researchers reporting in 2013 in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience examined the brains of psychopaths (who have stunted empathy for others) and found multiple brain regions involved, including the anterior insula, the anterior cingulate cortex, the supplementary motor area, the inferior frontal gyrus, the somatosensory cortex and the right amygdala. (Specifically, these areas are linked to empathy for pain.)
In a review paper that same year, published in the journal Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, researchers catalogued all of the brain regions involved in moral judgments. The names of a few familiar regions popped up. The insular cortex — which holds the anterior insula and is associated with the processing of disgust, uncertainty and emotions — plays a role in morals. So does the anterior cingulate cortex. [5 Ways Your Emotions Influence Your World (and Vice Versa)]
In other words, empathy is tangled with moral judgment even at the level of brain anatomy. Understanding how others think and feel is important to making moral decisions, of course.
But people aren't perfect at it. A 2013 study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that when one person is exposed to a negative stimuli (a picture of maggots and a bowl of slime, for example) while another person is exposed to a positive stimuli (e.g., a picture of a puppy and a soft fleece), the individual emotions of the two people get in the way of understanding one another. The person exposed to the negative stimuli views the person exposed to the positive stimuli as less happy than that individual really is. Meanwhile, the person who had the positive experience views the person who had the negative experience as happier than he or she really is. A person's own emotional state bleeds into his or her understanding of another's.
Brain bias
Empathy is "a powerful emotion," said Emile Bruneau, a cognitive scientist and visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. Even so, people can be easily "distracted" from empathy by other emotions and even external factors, she told Live Science.
"It can motivate us. It can bring us to tears and motivate us to great action of altruism," Bruneau said. "But it's also incredibly flexible. We can feel a great amount of empathy for someone and something, but then we can turn around and feel no empathy at all for someone else."
For instance, people might feel empathy for a dead or endangered child, and this emotion might lead them to feel anger and aggression toward the parents they perceive as being at fault, Bruneau said. People also prefer to apply empathy to their own in-groups, and tend not to feel as much empathy for out-groups.
"That can be across any boundary," Bruneau said. "It's one of the curious things about humans. We can distinguish in-group and out-group across any arbitrary boundary we decide."
Another serious hiccup for empathy is what's called the fundamental attribution error. This is a cognitive bias by which people assume that other people's actions are mostly driven by their personalities, rather than external factors that are out of their control. However, when people think about their own behavior, they do take these external factors into account.
In other words, if your kid gets away from you at the zoo, you can list the reasons why: He's fast; the place was crowded; your other kids needed your attention. If someone else's kid slips away at the zoo, it's because that person is a bad parent, you may conclude.
In a particularly individualistic culture, like modern America, the fundamental attribution error may play an outsize role.
"People in individualistic cultures are more likely to commit this error, and are more likely in general to attribute actions to the individual instead of the situation," said Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University and author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before" (Free Press, 2006).
Culture change?
Survey data comparing today's Americans to their counterparts of the same age in previous generations suggests that the population is becoming more individualistic, and has been doing so for at least a century.
"Since U.S. culture has grown more individualistic, it makes sense that people are now more likely to blame parents when things go wrong," Twenge told Live Science.
Similar generational research also finds declines in empathy. A study published in 2011 in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Reviewfound a decline of 48 percent in college students' scores on empathic concern, a measure of feelings of sympathy, tenderness and compassion for others. There was also a 34 percent decline in perspective-taking, the intellectual tendency to imagine another's point of view. (This data is subject to some controversy over whether people really feel more individualistic and less empathetic, or whether it's simply more socially acceptable to say so now.)
Changing attitudes toward parenting and children may also make blame and judgment more rampant. Life has become staggeringly safer for children over the past century. According to the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, the rate of deaths for children under the age of 4 has dropped from 1,418.8 deaths per 100,000 in 1907 to 28.6 deaths per 100,000 in 2007. [What Are the Odds of Dying From…]
Unintentional accidents made up about the same proportion of deaths of small children since 1970 (37 percent that year, versus 34 percent in 2007), but the overall number of deaths has continued to decline during that time. This means fatal childhood accidents are rarer than ever.
"People used to think accidents were normal — acts of God, or just random bad luck," said Stephanie Coontz, a historian of families at The Evergreen State College in Washington. "And precisely because life was less safe then, people were less inclined than today to have the expectation that life would be safe if no one screwed up."
Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science. She covers the world of human and animal behavior, as well as paleontology and other science topics. Stephanie has a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has ducked under a glacier in Switzerland and poked hot lava with a stick in Hawaii. Stephanie hails from East Tennessee, the global center for salamander diversity. Follow Stephanie on Google+.
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Animal magnetism may be a more literal concept than it's given credit for, according to a new study that finds that people are more attracted to their romantic partners after playing with magnets.
The research is an example of a social priming effect, an old idea in psychology that has recently become more controversial. The idea holds that when people are "primed" or prompted to think about a particular concept — such as physical magnetic attraction — it affects their cognition in surprising ways.
In this case, the magnets may make the metaphor of love as a physical force more prominent in people's minds, leading them to report closer feelings with their partners, said Andrew Christy, a graduate student in psychology at Texas A&M University and a co-author of the new study. [13 Scientifically Proven Signs You're in Love]
Social priming effects have become a battleground in social psychology in recent years. The entire field is in the midst of a "replication crisis," because scientists have failed to replicate the results of many famous experiments when trying to repeat them. Social priming studies have been some of the highest-profile failures: In 2012, researchers failed to replicate one classic study of social priming, which found that people walked slower after being exposed to words related to old age, kicking off a firestorm of debate.
Today, some psychologists are unsure whether social priming really exists; others think it does, but that the effects are subtle and very context-dependent, making the effects hard to measure.
Love and magnets
In the new research, Christy and his colleagues attempted to guard against a false result by conducting their experiments twice, replicating their own research. However, independent replication by other researchers will be necessary to show that the magnetism effect truly exists, the researchers said.
In the new study, researchers focused on the metaphor of love as a physical force. They asked 120 students who were 18 to 22 years old and who were either in relationships or had been in relationships within the last few months, to fill out questionnaires about their connection with their partners. Before they began, the students were told to take a "mental break" by playing with blocks, putting them together and taking them apart. Some of the students were given magnetized blocks that attracted each other, while some had magnetized blocks that repelled each other, and some had blocks without magnets. [9 Cool Facts About Magnets]
The participants who played with the magnetically attracting blocks reported greater attraction, satisfaction and commitment in their relationships or recent relationships compared with those students given the other two block types, Christy told Live Science.
"The nonmagnetic and the repel condition didn't seem to differ from one another at all," he said.
So in their next experiment, this one with 150 students, the researchers included only blocks with magnets that attracted, and nonmagnetized blocks. The people who played with the magnetized blocks again reported greater levels of attraction, satisfaction and commitment in their relationships than those who played with nonmagnetized blocks, the researchers said in their article, published May 26 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
Although the effects of the magnets on people's levels of attraction and intimacy were larger than in the first experiment, the effects on people's satisfaction and commitment were smaller, the researchers found. The reason for those smaller effects may have been that the second experiment took place later in the semester, and more students who originally reported being in relationships had broken up, the researchers wrote. Thus, more participants may have been remembering past relationships instead of thinking of current ones.
Words to thoughts
No one has previously studied the "love is attraction" metaphor, Christy said, though, in a similar vein, a previous study did find that people report that candy and water taste sweeter after they are primed with thoughts of love. A 2008 study found that people made to think of loneliness rate the room they are in as colder than those primed to think about being accepted.
"These studies reiterate the basic point of conceptual metaphor theory, that these metaphors that we use in language aren't just figures of speech or ways of talking about things," Christy said. "They actually are reflective of how we think about things, too."
Sara is a staff writer for Live Science, covering health. She grew up outside of Philadelphia and studied biology at Hamilton College in upstate New York. When she's not writing, she can be found at the library, checking out a big stack of books.
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There's good news for frustrated parents trying to get their kids to eat their vegetables (or go to sleep, or clean their rooms): Science shows that using reverse psychology can, indeed, work.
Reverse psychology is part of a phenomenon of psychology called "reactance," said Jeff Greenberg, a professor of social psychology at the University of Arizona.
The idea of reactance is that people are deeply motivated to protect their freedoms, Greenberg said. When people feel that their freedom is threatened — for example, they think someone is taking away their ability to make their own choices — they react against that threat, he said. Thus, they may feel angry or defensive and try to reverse the threat, he said. [10 Scientific Tips for Raising Happy Kids]
Essentially, reverse psychology takes advantage of a person's reactance, Greenberg told Live Science.
When you use reverse psychology on a person, you're threatening his or her perceptions of freedom, he said. Threatening this freedom makes it more appealing to choose to exercise that freedom, he said.
Take, for example, a kid who won't eat his broccoli. When a parent says, "You can't eat the broccoli," suddenly, eating it becomes more appealing to the kid, Greenberg said. So, although the kid never wanted the broccoli in the first place, he felt free to choose, Greenberg said. When you take that freedom away, eating the broccoli becomes more attractive, he said.
Greenberg noted that using reverse psychology doesn't always work. It is more likely to work on people who are more prone to reactance, he said.
People who are irritable, stubborn and emotional tend to be more prone to reactance, Greenberg said. People who are more agreeable and compliant, on the other hand, tend to be less prone, he said.
There's also some limited evidence that men are a little more prone to reactance than women, he added.
As for your toddler who just won't eat his broccoli, Greenberg noted that there are phases in childhood where kids are more susceptible to reverse psychology. Between ages 2 and 4, for example, kids can be more emotional and more rebellious, so reverse psychology may be more likely to work on them, he said. But by age 4, when kids are a bit more socialized and less likely to throw temper tantrums, they start to become less susceptible to reverse psychology, he said.
The other classic example is adolescence. When teens are rebelling against their parents, they may be susceptible to reverse psychology, Greenberg said. That's a time period when parents say one thing, and teens want to do the opposite, he said. [10 Facts Every Parent Should Know About Their Teen's Brain]
The other thing about children, particularly younger children, is that they are less cognitively developed, and thus may not realize that their parents are using reverse psychology on them, adults are more likely to see through it, Greenberg noted.
Indeed, attempts to use reverse psychology on adults can backfire, Greenberg said. They'll react against the attempt to manipulate them with reverse psychology, he said. You can end up with "reverse reverse psychology" in a sense, he added.
But there's no reason to say it won't work on adults; it just has to be very subtle, Greenberg said.
Sara is a staff writer for Live Science, covering health. She grew up outside of Philadelphia and studied biology at Hamilton College in upstate New York. When she's not writing, she can be found at the library, checking out a big stack of books.
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If you can't seem to let go of a regret, a little self-compassion may help you move on, a recent study finds.
The people in the study who practiced self-compassion, or being kind to oneself, were more likely to overcome regrets than the people who did not do so, according to the study, published in February in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Although regrets are often painful, previous studies have suggested that some people can overcome them and feel stronger afterward, said Jia Wei Zhang, a graduate student in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. But this isn't the case for everyone, he said. [5 Ways to Foster Self-Compassion in Your Child]
The researchers wanted to better understand why some people report feeling improvement from regrets but others don't, Zhang said. They suspected that the difference lies in how people approach their regrets in hindsight, he said. "Do we run away from them, or take them head-on?" he said.
In the study, the researchers zeroed in on self-compassion as a potential factor in why some people have an easier time leaving their regrets behind them.
In an experiment, 400 students ages 18 to 49 sat down at computers for a writing exercise. First, the students were asked to write about their biggest regret. Half were randomly assigned to write about a regret of action, or something that they did but wish they had not done; the other half were asked to write about a regret of inaction, or something they did not do but wish they had, according to the study.
Then, the participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: self-compassion, self-esteem and a control group. The self-compassion group was asked to respond to the prompt, "Imagine that you are talking to yourself about this regret from a compassionate and understanding perspective. What would you say?" The self-esteem group was asked to respond to the prompt, "Imagine that you are talking to yourself about this regret from a perspective of validating your positive (rather than negative) qualities," according to the study.
The control group was not asked to write about the regret; rather, these participants were asked to write about a hobby they enjoyed.
Then, the researchers asked the participants a series of questions about their feelings of forgiveness, acceptance and personal improvement following the exercise.
They found that the people in the self-compassion group reported greater feelings of acceptance, forgiveness and personal improvement, compared with not only the control group but also the self-esteem group. In other words, focusing on your best qualities is not what helps you feel better about a regret. Rather, being compassionate toward yourself is what may make a difference, the researchers found. [9 DIY Ways to Improve Your Mental Health]
It's possible that people who practice self-compassion are able to confront their regrets and see what went wrong, so they can make a better choice in the future, Zhang told Live Science. Self-compassion pushes people to accept their regret instead of running away from it, he said. "This willingness to remain in contact with their regret may afford people the opportunity to discover avenues for personal improvement," the researchers wrote in the study.
The researchers added that the acceptance element is just one part of why self-compassion helps people improve after doing something they regret. The other element that they proposed is called reappraisal, in which people think of "an event in a way that shifts its emotional impact," they wrote. They pointed to an example of this from a previous study on breast cancer patients who were asked to try thinking about their treatment in a positive light before it began. The women who did so reported greater feelings of personal growth later on, the researchers wrote.
In 2012, Glen MacPherson, of the University of British Columbia, began hearing the sound at night, between 10 and 11 p.m.
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In the spring of 2012, when I was living near the coastal village of Sechelt, on British Columbia’s picturesque Sunshine Coast, I began hearing a humming sound, which I thought were float planes.
The noise usually started later at night, between 10 and 11 p.m. My first clue that something unusual was happening came with the realization that the sound didn’t fade away, like plane noises typically do. And the slightest ambient noise – exhaling audibly, even turning my head quickly – caused it to momentarily stop. One night after the sound started I stepped outside the house. Nothing.
I was the only person in the house who could hear it; my family said they didn’t know what I was talking about.
Naturally, I assumed something in the house was the culprit, and I searched for the source in vain. I even ended up cutting the power to the entire house. The sound got louder.
While I couldn’t hear the sound outdoors, I could still hear it in my car at night with the windows closed and the ignition off. I drove for miles in every direction, and it was still there in the background when I stopped the car. I was able to rule out obvious sources: industrial activity, marine traffic, electric substations and highway noise.
When I searched on the internet for “unusual low-frequency humming noise,” I soon realized that others had conducted the same search. I was part of the small fraction of people who can hear what is called the “Worldwide Hum” or, simply, the “Hum.”
The questions motivating me and thousands of others were the same: “What’s causing this? Can it be stopped?”
One geoscientist’s theory
The classic description of the Hum is that it sounds like a truck engine idling. For some, it’s a distant rumbling or droning noise. It can start and stop suddenly or wax and wane over time. For others, the Hum is loud, relentless and life-altering.
I eventually came across one of the few serious papers on the topic. It was written in 2004 by geoscientist David Deming (who’s also a Hum hearer).
Deming began by describing the standard history: The Hum was first documented in the late 1960s, around Bristol, England. It first appeared in the United States in the late 1980s, in Taos, New Mexico.
He then examined the competing hypotheses for the source of the Hum. Many have pointed to the electric grid or cellphone towers. But this theory is dismissed on two grounds: cellphones didn’t exist in the 1960s, and the frequency emitted by both cell towers and the electric grid can be easily blocked by metal enclosures.
He wondered whether mass hysteria was to blame, a psychological phenomenon in which rumor and “collective delusions” lead to the appearance of physical ailments for which there’s no medical explanation. The fact that so many people have researched the Hum on their own, using a search engine – rather than hearing about it from some other person – moves the conversation away from delusion and hysteria spread by word of mouth.
Deming looked at the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), an isolated military compound in Alaska that uses radio waves to study outer space and for testing advanced communication techniques – and a favorite focus of conspiracy theorists, who have accused the facilityof acts ranging from mind control to weather control. He studied the possibility of otoacoustic emissions, which are naturally occurring sounds caused by the vibration of hair cells in the ear.
Deming eventually fingered Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio waves(between 3 kHz and 30 kHz) as the most likely culprit. The world’s military powers use massive land-based and airborne transmitters on these frequencies in order to communicate with submerged submarines. Radio waves at these frequencies can penetrate up to a solid inch of aluminum.
In the paper, Deming proposes a simple and elegant experiment for testing this hypothesis. Hum hearers randomly enter three identical-looking boxes. The first box blocks VLF radio signals, the second box is an anechoic (soundproof) chamber and the third box is the control.
He left the experiment for others to pursue, and while there are some practical difficulties with the design, Deming’s overall concept has motivated the experiments I am currently conducting.
A disciplined inquiry begins
A plethora of pseudoscience and wild conspiracy theories has the potential to drown out the serious work in this area. I’ve encountered seemingly serious people who have argued that the Hum is caused by tunneling under the earth, the electronic targeting of specific individuals, aliens and mating fish.
Given the need for disciplined inquiry into the phenomenon, in late 2012 I started The World Hum Map and Database Project. The database gathers, documents and maps detailed and anonymous information from people who can hear the Hum. It provides raw data for research in a strictly moderated and serious forum for research and commentary, while providing a sense of community for people whose lives have been negatively affected by the Hum.
Most people have some experience with how disruptive some types of noises can be, which is why there are often noise ordinances in many cities and towns, especially at night. There are many sufferers who dread the nighttime because of how loud and relentless the Hum can be. The Hum database is replete with descriptions of desperate people who have been tormented by the noise for years. The phrase “driving me crazy” is all too common. (I feel fortunate that, in my case, the Hum is more of a curiosity than it is an irritant.)
The project also aims to validate and normalize the phenomenon by discussing it alongside other widely reported auditory phenomena, such as tinnitus, a relatively common medical condition that causes people to hear high-pitched squealing tones. Those who experience tinnitus and also the Hum report the two as being completely different in character.
The latest update of the Hum Map, from June 6, presents roughly 10,000 map and data points, and we’ve already made some notable findings.
For example, we’ve found that the mean and median age of Hum hearers is 40.5 years, and 55 percent of hearers are men. This goes against the widely repeated theory that the Hum mainly affects middle-aged and older women.
Interestingly, there are eight times as many ambidextrous people among hearers as there are in the general population. As more data are collected from Hum hearers, I hope that specialists in demographics and inferential statistics will be able to generate more detailed results.
The goals of the research
The historical record of the Hum is crucial, because if the current version as narrated by Deming is correct, many theories can immediately be ruled out. After all, cellphones and HAARP didn’t exist until decades after the Worldwide Hum was first documented in England in the late 1960s. I currently have a researcher digging into the Times of London digital archive to search for mentions of the Hum going back to the 18th and 19th centuries. If convincing examples are found, then the direction of my research will shift dramatically because all modern technologies could be ruled out.
In my view, there are currently four hypotheses for the source of the world Hum that survive the most superficial scrutiny.
The first hypothesis – argued by Deming and the one I’m currently pursuing – is that the Hum is rooted in Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio transmissions. It’s increasingly accepted now that the human body will sometimes experience electromagnetic (EM) energy and interpret it in a way that creates sounds. This was established for high-frequency EM energy by the American neuroscientist Alan Frey in his infamous “microwave hearing” experiments, which showed that certain radio frequencies can actually be heard as sounds.
Today, there are biophysical models that predict and explain the impact VLF EM energy has on living tissue. I have designed and built a VLF radio blocking box that should be able to test whether VLF radio frequencies are a prerequisite for generating the Hum.
The second hypothesis is that the Hum is the grand accumulation of low-frequency sound and human-generated infrasound (sounds with audio frequencies below roughly 20 Hz and which can be felt more than they can be heard). This includes everything from highway noise to all manner of industrial activity.
The third is that the Hum is a terrestrial or geological phenomenon that generates low-frequency sounds or perceptions of those sounds. For example, there is a well-documented history of animals predicting earthquakes and taking action to save themselves. From an evolutionary perspective, there may be survival value in having members of a population highly sensitive to some types of vibrations. When it comes to the Hum, some humans may have a similar physiological mechanism in place.
The fourth is that the Hum is an internally generated phenomenon, perhaps rooted in a particular anatomical variation, genetic predisposition or the result of toxicity and medication.
The Hum is now the subject of serious media coverage and, increasingly, scientific scrutiny. The overall goal of my project and the people who contribute to it is to find the source of the Hum and, if possible, stop it.
If the Hum is man-made, then my task is to raise public awareness and advocate turning away from the technologies that are causing it. If the source is exogenous and natural, there’s the possibility that there may be no escape from it, apart from masking it with background sounds.
Of course there is the remote possibility that one of the more exotic explanations will prove to be correct. But, as in all science, it seems best to start with what we know and is plausible, as opposed to what we don’t know and is implausible.
Owen Jarus writes about archaeology and all things about humans' past for Live Science. Owen has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Toronto and a journalism degree from Ryerson University. He enjoys reading about new research and is always looking for a new historical tale.
A skull bone of the Buddha was found inside this gold casket, which was stored in a silver casket within the stupa model, found in a crypt beneath a Buddhist temple.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Chinese Cultural Relics
Archaeologists have discovered what may be a skull bone from the revered Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. The bone was hidden inside a model of a stupa, or a Buddhist shrine used for meditation.
The research team found the 1,000-year-old model within a stone chest in a crypt beneath a Buddhist temple in Nanjing, China. Inside the stupa model archaeologists found the remains of Buddhist saints, including a parietal (skull) bone that inscriptions say belonged to the Buddha himself.
The model is made of sandalwood, silver and gold, and is covered with gemstones made of crystal, glass, agate and lapis lazuli, a team of archaeologists reported in an article published in the journal Chinese Cultural Relics.
Inscriptions engraved on the stone chest that the model was found in say that it was constructed during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong (A.D. 997-1022), during the Song Dynasty. Also inscribed on the stupa are the names of people who donated money and material to build the model, as well as some of the people who constructed the model. [See Photos of the Model Stupa Holding Buddha Remains]
While the inscriptions say that the skull bone belongs to the Buddha, it is unknown whether it really does come from him. In the journal article, archaeologists didn't speculate on how likely it is. The bone is being treated with great respect and has been interred in the modern-day Qixia Temple by Buddhist monks.
Stone chest inscription
This model of a stupa, which is used for meditation, was discovered beneath Grand Bao'en Temple in Nanjing, China. The 1,000-year-old stupa is made of sandalwood, silver and gold.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Chinese Cultural Relics
Discovered beneath the Grand Bao'en Temple, the stupa model — which is 117 centimeters tall and 45 cm wide (nearly 4 feet by 1.5 feet) — was stored within an iron box, which, in turn, was stored within a stone chest.
An inscription found within the stone chest was written by a man named Deming about 1,000 years ago, saying that he is "the Master of Perfect Enlightenment, Abbot of Chengtian Monastery [and] the Holder of the Purple Robe" (as translated by researchers in the journal article). He tells the story of how the Buddha's parietal bone came to China. [Photos: 1,700-Year-Old Buddhist Sculptures Found in Shrine]
Deming wrote that after the Buddha "entered parinirvana" (a final death that breaks the cycle of death and rebirth), that his body "was cremated near the Hirannavati River" in India. The man who ruled India at the time, King Ashoka (reign 268-232 B.C.), decided to preserve the Buddha's remains, which he "divided into a total of 84,000 shares," Deming wrote. "Our land of China received 19 of them," including the parietal bone, he added.
The parietal bone was kept in a temple that was destroyed about 1,400 years ago during a series of wars, Deming wrote. "The foundation ruins … were scattered in the weeds," Deming wrote. "In this time of turbulence, did no one care for Buddhist affairs?"
Emperor Zhenzong agreed to rebuild the temple and have the Buddha's parietal bone, and the remains of other Buddhist saints, buried in an underground crypt at the temple, according to Deming's inscriptions. They were interred on July 21, 1011 A.D., in "a most solemn and elaborate burial ceremony," Deming wrote.
Deming praised the emperor for rebuilding the temple and burying the Buddha's remains, wishing the emperor a long life, loyal ministers and numerous grandchildren: "May the Heir Apparent and the imperial princes be blessed and prosperous with 10,000 offspring; may Civil and Military Ministers of the Court be loyal and patriotic; may the three armed forces and citizens enjoy a happy and peaceful time …"
Buddha burial
The parietal bone of the Buddha was buried within an inner casket made of gold, which, in turn, was placed in an outer casket made of silver, according to the archaeologists. The silver casket was then placed inside the model of the stupa.
The gold and silver caskets were decorated with images of lotus patterns, phoenix birds and gods guarding the caskets with swords. The outer casket also has images of spirits called apsaras that are shown playing musical instruments.
The parietal bone of the Buddha was placed within the gold inner casket along with three crystal bottles and a silver box, all of which contain the remains of other Buddhist saints.
Engraved on the outside of the model are several images of the Buddha, along with scenes depicting stories from the Buddha's life, from his birth to the point when he reached "parinirvana," a death from which the Buddha wasn't reborn — something that freed him from a cycle of death and rebirth, according to the Buddhist religion.
Impact in China
A large team of archaeologists from the Nanjing Municipal Institute of Archaeology excavated the crypt between 2007 and 2010; they were supported by experts from other institutions in China.
Although the excavations received little coverage by Western media outlets, they were covered extensively in China. Chinese media outlets say that, after the parietal bone of the Buddha was removed, Buddhist monks interred the bone and the remains of the other Buddhist saints in Qixia Temple, a Buddhist temple used today. The Buddha's parietal bone and other artifacts from the excavation were later displayed in Hong Kong and Macao.
When the bone traveled to Macao in 2012, the media outlet Xinhua reported that "tens of thousands of Buddhist devotees will pay homage to the sacred relic," and that "more than 140,000 tickets have been sold out by now, according to the [event organizer]."
An article detailing the discoveries was published in Chinese in 2015 in the journal Wenwu, before being translated and published in Chinese Cultural Relics.
