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Mogao Caves
Mogao Caves, also known as "thousand Buddha caves," is located on the eastern slope of Mingsha Mountain (Echoing-Sand Mountain), 15.5 southeast of Dun-huang. Mogao Caves contains a large treasury of Buddhist art and well-preserved relics. In 1987, the cave was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
According to records of the Tang Dynasty, Mogao Caves was founded in 366 and enlarged in the following dynasties. After thousands of years, it was enlarged to 5,512 feet long from south to north with more than 700 caves. There are 492 caves with statues and frescoes, 2,415 colorfully painted statues, almost 500,000 square feet of frescoes, five wooden eaves, thousands of lotus stone pillars and flowered floor tiles, and about 52,400 documents (two out of three are preserved).
The typical cave structure of the Sui and Tang Dynasties was flat and square, covered by an arched roof with a niche at back.From the late Tang Dynasty to the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the frescoes and niches had been replaced by altars in the middle of the caves, so that a whole rock cliff was reserved for large-scale frescoes. Painted statues are the typical art of Dunhuang, and most of the statues are the three-body combinations of one Buddha and two bo-dhisattvas; some of them are Anan, JiaYe. the Ten Great Disciples and arhats, deities, and Buddha's warrior attendants. The bodies were depicted as sturdy in the former Northern Wei Dynasty and gradually became slender. From Sui and Tang Dynasty, groups of painted statues with seven to nine bodies appeared. The style became more and more elegant and magnificent. The frescoes are the most eye-catching part of Mogao Caves, showing the outstanding creativity of the artists and their excellent achievements. They reflect the history of Chinese people from different stratums, including their work lives, social activities, science and technologies, music and dancing, cultures and customs of various ethnic groups, dresses, and adornments. In 1900, a cave of Buddhist scriptures was found in the corridor of the sixteenth cave, where about 50,000 relics of the fourth to the fourteenth century were found, including posthumous papers, embroideries, silk pictures, and paper pictures. Many of the papers are handwritten copies in Chinese, but there are also many other languages represented, such as old Tibetan, Sanskrit, Huihu, Yutian, and Guizi .
Dunhuang art is extensive and profound, and offers a treasury of art combining architecture, sculpture, and fresco in one. The relics and artwork in the caves attract many scholars from various countries.
