The Western Thousand Buddha Caves () is a Buddhist cave temple site in Dunhuang,

Gansu Province Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibeta ...

, China. The site is located approximately 35 km southwest of the urban centre and about the same distance from the Yangguan Pass; the area served as a staging post for travellers on the Silk Road. It is the western counterpart of the

Mogao Caves The Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, form a system of 500 temples southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu p ...

, also known as the "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas" after the founding monk Yuezun's vision in 366 of "golden radiance in the form of a thousand Buddhas". The caves were excavated from the cliff that runs along the north bank of the Dang River. A number have been lost to floods and collapse; some forty are still extant. Twenty-two decorated caves house 34

polychrome Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery or sculpture in multiple colors. Ancient Egypt Colossal statu ...

statues and 800 m² of wall paintings, dating from the Northern Wei to the late- Yuan and early-

Ming The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peop ...

Dynasties (sixth to fourteenth centuries). The site was included within the 1961 designation of the

as a Major National Historical and Cultural Site.

Caves

A manuscript from the Library Cave, dating to the

Five Dynasties The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (), from 907 to 979, was an era of political upheaval and division in 10th-century History of China#Imperial China, Imperial China. Five Dynasties in Chinese history, dynastic states quickly succeeded ...

and now at the

Bibliothèque nationale A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

in Paris, documents the early history of the site ( P 5034): according to the ''Domain Record of Shazhou Dudu Prefecture – Shouchang County'', "60 '' li'' east of the county is a very old inscription that says '

Han Dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

… made a small Buddha niche; the common people gradually built more'". Since Shouchang County, modern Nanhu Village, is the location of the Yangguan Pass along the

Hexi Corridor The Hexi Corridor (, Xiao'erjing: حْسِ ظِوْلاْ, IPA: ), also known as the Gansu Corridor, is an important historical region located in the modern western Gansu province of China. It refers to a narrow stretch of traversable and rela ...

, it is understood that this is a reference to the origins of the Western Thousand Buddha Caves. The decorated caves are in three main sections: Caves 1–19 at the west end of the cliff, approximately one kilometre from the modern reservoir; Cave 20 in the middle of the site, near the second

floodgate Floodgates, also called stop gates, are adjustable gates used to control water flow in flood barriers, reservoir, river, stream, or levee systems. They may be designed to set spillway crest heights in dams, to adjust flow rates in sluices a ...

; and Caves 21 and 22 at the eastern end of the cliff. Most of the sculptures were restored in a different style during the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...

and the Republic of China. The caves at the western end of the site have had aluminium doors and glass partitions installed more recently with the intention of mitigating the environmental causes of deterioration. Some of the paintings at the far east end of the site, distant from the custodians' lodgings, have been detached and remounted in a cave at Mogao. The ruined state of the main Buddha image in Northern Wei Cave 7 enables the construction techniques to be seen: layers of earthen render over an armature of branches and reeds. The loss of upper paint layers also reveals the linear grid used to set out the design of the Thousand Buddhas on the cave walls.

List of caves

The twenty-two caves are dated as follows, based largely on the

style Style is a manner of doing or presenting things and may refer to: * Architectural style, the features that make a building or structure historically identifiable * Design, the process of creating something * Fashion, a prevailing mode of clothing ...

of the paintings and their accompanying inscriptions:

References

External links

Conservation of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road (1st Conference) (GCI)

* {{in lang, zh}

Buddhist grottoes in Gansu Buddhist temples in Jiuquan Chinese painting Sites along the Silk Road Dunhuang Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Gansu

Caves

List of caves

See also

References

External links