"Finger Crossing and Toothing Bodhisattva" is a famous colored sculpture in the pagoda hall of Huayan Temple in Datong. According to legend, the royal family in Liao Dynasty believed in Buddhism and recruited skilled craftsmen to build Huayan Temple. Outside the city, there was a skillful craftsman with outstanding carving skills, who didn't want to work for the royal family and couldn't bear to leave his young only daughter alone at home. This angered the government, and the general manager beat him up on the charge of "disobeying the emperor's orders". Thanks to the request of all craftsmen, they were spared a greater disaster. His daughter missed her old father, so she disguised herself as a man and a craftsman's son, and invited someone to talk to the manager, take care of her old father and serve the royal family. The construction project is huge, and the supervisor often beats the craftsmen. The girl took the initiative to cook for everyone and served tea and water. When she saw her father and craftsmen thinking hard about shaping idols, she often stood or sat by, making a gesture of chanting with her hands folded and her eyes closed, and praying for them. Sculptors were inspired to shape and decorate according to her figure, figure and dynamics. This promoted the progress of the project. The girl's behavior attracted the attention of a young craftsman. He realized that she was not the son of the old craftsman, but the daughter of the old craftsman, and worried that if the supervisor found out, the girl would suffer bad luck. It really happened. One day, the chief engineer found that the old craftsman had not finished his contract work, so he ordered someone to beat him up. Just then, the girl came forward and took the initiative to take responsibility. The chief engineer seems to have discovered the secret of this "son" and ordered him to take off his clothes and beat him up. Seeing that the situation was about to be exposed, she took a deep look at everyone and then threw herself into the hot metal of the bell tower with a smile. Boiling molten iron splashed all over Lao Gao, and the old craftsman's daughter turned into a white cloud and floated into the sky. The chief engineer was burned to death by splashing molten iron. The young craftsman remembered the grin of the veteran artist's daughter before she died. According to her posture, figure and eyes before she died, she carved a statue of a bodhisattva and put it in a conspicuous position, especially on the statue.

The second historical legend

There is also a touching story about the origin of this bodhisattva: this clay sculpture has no strict performance of Buddhism, no graceful charm of court women, but has a natural and smooth beauty of folk girls. It is said that this is indeed a model of a clay sculpture artist based on a girl. At that time, in order to build the next Huayan Temple, the emperor ordered thousands of skilled craftsmen from all over the country to gather in Datong. One of them, a young clay sculptor from Liangzhou, also applied all the way to the cloud. The government collected many local houses and let a large number of craftsmen live in them. In order to prevent the craftsmen from escaping, the government issued a Jiabao order, all the craftsmen fled and the landlord's family was beheaded. Craftsmen are generally reluctant to run away for fear of hurting the innocent. Young craftsmen from Liangzhou were assigned to live in an abandoned yard, with only their father and daughter. The landlord's father and daughter live together, and his father is ill. The young craftsmen are very sympathetic to the plight of the father and daughter. They not only often help them with their work, but also teach them clay figurine skills. Because the clay figurines squeezed out are real, adults and children are rushing to buy them, and the father and daughter will soon make a fortune. In order to repay the kindness of the craftsman, the father and the daughter intend to let the craftsman run away quietly, and then they fly away. After telling this idea to the young craftsman, the young craftsman shook his head and declined, fearing that his father and daughter would escape and that they would be caught and executed by the government when they fled back to their hometown. At the same time, because he likes the landlord's daughter, he doesn't want to leave this girl as beautiful as flowers and pure as jade. One year passed, another year passed, and the main hall of Xiahuayan Temple was completed. When entering the statue stage, the young craftsman received an instruction to shape a threatened female bodhisattva, which worried unmarried young people. Because according to the custom of building temples and statues in Liao Dynasty at that time, the female threatened bodhisattva was naked with only a few streamers on her body. At that time, clay sculptures were all made by imagination, and only men were shaped according to real people. A married craftsman can make a female figure according to the figure of his wife and daughter, but this young craftsman is homeless, and the model figures squeezed out by imagination are nothing like it. As the days passed, the days set by the government were getting closer and closer, and the young craftsmen were sad all day and didn't think about tea and rice. Seeing his mind, the father and the daughter called him to the front and asked him repeatedly. The young craftsman was asked by them and had to tell his difficulties in detail. After hearing this, the father called his daughter aside and whispered, only to see her running away with a red face. The old landlord opened the window for the young craftsman and said that he was willing to give his daughter to him as his wife, thus fulfilling his great event. The young craftsman had this idea for a long time, so he quickly bowed down and called himself his father-in-law. On the same day, he married the bride. The little craftsman made a villain according to his wife's figure and an adult according to the villain.

When the day of completion came, craftsmen wrapped their clay sculptures tightly in yellow robes, just waiting for the emperor's sacred eyes to browse. This day has finally arrived. The craftsmen untied their yellow robes to show their true colors for the emperor to appreciate. When the statue carved by the small craftsman was found, the official who presided over the construction of the temple looked pale. It turns out that the Buddha is actually showing his teeth, which is forbidden by Buddhism. His legs trembled for fear that the emperor would blame him. Who knows, the emperor walked up to the bodhisattva, staring at it, full of praise, forgetting that it was clay sculpture, and actually raised his hand to let her down to talk. The big officer who was scared white slowly became bloodless. Because the emperor didn't blame it, this statue has been handed down from generation to generation until today.