Religion not only provides spiritual encouragement and consolation, but also brings a number of material aspects to people in their everyday life. Among them, exchanging of religious artifacts and sacred object is often seen in the historic record, while in the context of modern capitalism, Religious consumerism emerged. The current research focuses on a new generation of religious artifact “Long Gong Sarira” (Sarira from the Palace of the Dragon king), taking the Taipei Jianguo Jade Market, energy gem stores as samples for field research, interviewing holders of Long Gong Sarira, which are the distributors, retailers and general consumers, combined with a quantitative research with questionnaires to compare the differences between Sarira and Long Gong Sarira. The first part of this study introduced the origins of Long Gong Sarira, including secondary data analysis of Sarira and the Dragon King recorded in the sutra, information about the place of origin in Thailand, as well as the story of how Long Gong Sarira crossed the sea and entered Taiwan. The naming and the origin of the legend of Long Gong Sarira play a crucial step in sanctifying the artifact. Further, the exchanging of Long Gong Sarira in Taiwan was not promoted by religious groups or monks, but by the retailers who builds its own consumer market and mechanisms.At the same time, through consumer feedback, retailers gradually build a complete classification of Long Gong Sarira, with their functions, characteristics and identifying the authenticity, etc., and to strengthen the criterion measurements and application methods. In addition, the holders of Long Gong Sarira spontaneously form and join social networking sites as a platform to share their experience and knowledge. The mythical experience of Long Gong Sarira’s holders made believe that Long Gong Sarira brings effects and miracles; however, it is beyond the description with words. These experiences enhanced the holder’s confidence and dependency, becoming a proof of ‘hierophany’ in modern religious artifact or sacred objects. Results from qualitative and quantitative data revealed that Long Gong Sarira can be defined as a new sacred object in modern religion.
