The mogao grottoes, also known as thousand-buddha grottoes, located in dunhuang in the west of hexi corridor, is the world’s largest and most abundant content in existing buddhist art.
If you want to take your family out on vacation, then the Mogao Grottoes with a strong literary atmosphere will be one of your best choices, so what is it?Let me tell you about it next!
Details
01
Mogao Grottoes, commonly known as Thousand Buddha Cave, is located in Dunhuang at the west end of Hexi Corridor. It was first built in the pre Qin period of the Sixteen Kingdoms. After the construction of the Northern Dynasty, the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties, the Western Xia Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty and other dynasties, it has formed a huge scale. There are 735 caves, 45000 square meters of murals and 2415 clay colored sculptures. It is the largest and richest Buddhist art place in the world.
02
Each cave in the Mogao Grottoes is a comprehensive art of the trinity of cave architecture, colored sculpture and painting. The largest cave is more than 200 square meters, and the smallest is less than 1 square meter. The main forms of the grottoes are Zen Grottoes, Central Tower Grottoes, Buddha niches, Buddha Tan Grottoes, Nirvana Grottoes, Seven Buddha Grottoes, Big Elephant Grottoes and so on. The painted sculptures with the combination of sculpture and painting mainly include Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, disciples, heavenly kings, Hercules and so on. Color plastic forms include round plastic, floating plastic, shadow plastic, good industry mud, etc. Except for the two great Buddhas in Caves 96th and 130, and the two reclining Buddhas in Caves 148th and 158 are stone clay sculptures, the rest are wood bone clay sculptures. The statue of Buddha is in the center, with disciples, Bodhisattvas, Heavenly Kings, and warriors standing on both sides, ranging from 3 to 11. The highest figure is the 35.6m Maitreya sitting statue in Cave 96, which is as small as 10 cm.
03
The Mogao Grottoes, along with the Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, Henan Province, and the Yungang Grottoes in Datong, Shanxi Province, are called the three major grottoes in China, while later, the Maijishan Grottoes are called the four major grottoes. On August 31,2019, the large-scale documentary “The Dialogue between the Mogao Grottoes and Angkor Wat”, co-produced by the Dunhuang Academy and other units, was premiered at the Dunhuang International Convention and Exhibition Center. The theme of the documentary is the dialogue between Asian civilizations, showing people how different civilizations are linked by destiny, culture and art.
04
The construction of the Dunhuang Grottoes and its historical process, the long history of Dunhuang, the influential local families and surnames, and the relationship between Dunhuang and the surrounding ethnic groups and the Western Regions are not or rarely recorded in history. The Dunhuang Caves have thousands of portraits of supporters, more than a thousand of which still have their titles tied to them. It is possible to learn much about historical conditions and historical clues.
05
The 1,000-year history of the construction of Dunhuang Grottoes was an important development period in China, which was divided and divided for a long time after the last two Han dynasties, and moved towards national integration and the unification of the north and the south, reaching the peak of the Tang Dynasty and then declining from the peak. During this period, it was the period of the formation and development of the procedures, schools, categories and theories of Chinese art, and it was also after the introduction of Buddhism and Buddhist art that Chinese Buddhist theory and Buddhist sects were established and developed. Buddhist art has become an important category of Chinese art, and finally completed the period of Sinicization.
