Grottoes are an outdoor art museum of stone carvings and
have significant value. The Longmen Grottoes near Luoyang (Henan Province), the
Mogao Caves near Dunhuang (Gansu Province) and the Yungang Grottoes near
Datong(Shanxi Province), are known as the three greatest stone sculpture
treasure houses in China. They vividly record the culture of Buddhism, which is
a very important religion in China and one of the three major schools of thought
along with Confucianism and Taoism. The three noted grottoes also reflect
political, economic, and cultural states in ancient China. They give us
historical data for the researching of ancient religion, arts, architecture,
calligraphy, music, dress, and medicine, and can be called a large scale
stone-carved art museum.
Yungang Grottoes as a treasure house of rare and splendid Chinese sculptures
enjoys worldwide fame. They are located at the southern foot of Mt Wuzhou, about
16 kilometers west of Datong City, Shanxi Province. These grottoes are the main
reason most people make it to Datong. They contain over 50,000 Buddihist statues
and stretch for about 1 km east to west. Yungang Grottoes are a
treasure-trove of cave art that combines traditional Chinese art forms with
foreign influence, particularly Greek and Indian. With its 53 existing rock
caves and over 51000 statues, Yungang Grottoes is a treasure house of ancient
Buddhist art, the largest of its kind in China.
The grottoes and niches of Longmen contain the largest and most
impressive collection of Chinese art of the late Northern Wei and Tang Dynasties
(316-907). These works, entirely devoted to the Buddhist religion, represent the
high point of Chinese stone carving. Today, there are still 2345 caves and
niches, 100,000 Buddhist images ranging in size from 2 cm to 17.14 meters, more
than 2800 inscribed tablets, and 43 Buddhist pagodas remaining in both East Hill
and West Hill. It is located 12km south of Luoyang and in the year 2000, Longmen
Grottoes was listed by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage Site.
The Mogao Caves, also named
Thousand-Buddha Caves, are praised as "a glittering pearl that adorns the Silk
Road", and they are the most famous caves in China. Located 25km southeast of
Dunhuang County, these caves are carved out of the sandstone cliffs of Mingsha
Mountain, extending some 1600m from south to north. Constructed in 10 dynasties
from the 4th to the 14th century, its 45000 square meters of mural paintings and
more than 2000 color statues are regarded as the greatest treasure-house of
Buddhist art existing in the world.
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