Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang
Click on the names to hear how they are pronounced
Also called Caved of a Thousand Buddhas, the Mogao Grottoes are hewn in the steen cliffs of Mingsha Mountain of Dunhuang City, Gansu Province. The largest and richest Buddhist treasure trove in the world the Mogao Grottoes have been in use for the longest time. Construction never stopped for over a thousand years since 366 (the 2nd year of the Pre-Qin Jian Yuan reign) through northern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Zhou, Sui, Tang, the Five Dynasties. The Well-preserved 492 surviving caves have 45,000 square meters of murals and 2,400 painted statues.
The murals in the grottoes display Buddhas, tales of sutras, and human figures which reflect the cultural characteristics of the society during which the caves were hewn. They are valuable for they exhibit the composition and layout of paintings and sculptures through the dynasties, their figure delineation, line drawing sketching and coloring, their heritage and transformation and their amalgamation with Western art. The painted statues vary in size, the largest being a 33-meter-high statues of a stone bodied clay Maitreya Buddha and the smallest a mere 10 centimeters in height. Even more remarkable are those done in the Wei and Tang dynasties.
Picture:Colored sculptures
In 1900 (the 26th year of the Qing Guang Xu reign), from the Sutra Cave were earthed 4,500 pieces of cultural relics dating from 250 to 1002 including embroideries, painting on silk, priceless manuscripts and literature in ancient Tibetan, Sanskrit, Uygur, Yutian and kuchah languages. This is the biggest find in the world about ancient oriental culture.
Picture:A nine-storey building at Mogao Grottoes,Dunhuang.
Above courtesy of www.china-window.com