Mogao Grottoes

Mogao means "high up in the desert". Mogao Grottoes (also known as Thousand Buddha Caves) is one of three noted grottoes in China. It consists of some 500 man-made caves that have survived some 1,600 years of volatile climate changes and other damage. The frescos, painted on the ceiling and walls of the caves, carry the best-preserved trove of Buddhist art in the world. They, along with Buddha figurines, were made to help promote and spread Buddhism, though the themes varied with the passage of times. The frescos also reflected some aspects of ancient Chinese people's living, thus providing pictorial evidence for the study of ancient Chinese society. They would stretch for more than 20 kilometers if all of them were linked together and made into a single scroll of two meters tall.

According to Tang Dynasty records, a monk had witnessed onsite a vision of thousand Buddha under showers of golden rays. Thus inspired, he started the caves construction work that spanned ten dynasties.

Most Buddhist monks came to China from India and Central Asia by way of the "Silk Road". Collectively as a World Heritage Site on the "Silk Road", the grottoes are 25 kilometers southeast of the Dunhuang town in northwestern China. Serving as the westernmost fort of the early Tang Dynasty, Dunhuang was not only a key trading post situated on the "Silk Road" but also the military headquarters for the operations in the Western Regions. Foreign merchants or monks from the West as well as officials or soldiers from central China brought their own cultures there and made the trading center a cultural "melting pot". The economic, military, political and cultural activities that took place at this crossroads provided the basis for the flourishing of one of China's earliest Buddhist centers. As an ideal place for foreign monks to learn the Chinese language and culture before entering central China, foreign monks and their Chinese disciples formed the earliest Buddhist communities at Dunhuang in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. Many Buddhist sutras were translated there and then distributed into central China. Dating from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries, the ancient Buddhist site contains 492 decorated caves excavated into 1.6 kilometers of cliff face and includes some 45,000 square meters of wall paintings and over 2,400 sculptures.

The smallest cave is only about 0.3 meter tall, merely allowing one to pop his head in, whereas the largest one covers a space of 268 square meters. The tallest grotto stands from the foot to the top of the hill, looking like a high-rise from the outside. All are randomly scattered like a honeycomb.

Despite years of erosion, the murals are still brightly colored, with clear lines. Through pictures of different styles and schools drawn in different historical periods, they tell Buddhist stories and ways as well as life in the secular world. All these, plus a largest quantity of Buddhist sutras and relics kept in the caves have provided valuable material for a study of ancient China's politics, economy, and culture and arts, as well as its science and technology, military affairs, and religion, documenting national history as well as cultural exchanges between China and the world.