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| (A Panorama view of Mogao Grottoes) |
Also called Caved of a Thousand Buddhas, the Mogao Grottoes are hewn
in the steen cliffs of Mingsha Mountain of Dunhuang City, Gansu Province.
The largest and richest Buddhist treasure trove in the world the Mogao
Grottoes have been in use for the longest time. Construction never
stopped for over a thousand years since 366 (the 2nd year of the Pre-Qin
Jian Yuan reign) through northern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Zhou,
Sui, Tang, the Five Dynasties. The Well-preserved 492 surviving caves
have 45,000 square meters of murals and 2,400 painted statues.
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| (A nine-storey building at Mogao
Grottoes,Dunhuang) |
The murals in the grottoes display Buddhas, tales of sutras, and
human figures which reflect the cultural characteristics of the
society during which the caves were hewn. They are valuable for
they exhibit the composition and layout of paintings and sculptures
through the dynasties, their figure delineation, line drawing sketching
and coloring, their heritage and transformation and their amalgamation
with Western art. The painted statues vary in size, the largest
being a 33-meter-high statues of a stone bodied clay Maitreya Buddha
and the smallest a mere 10 centimeters in height. Even more remarkable
are those done in the Wei and Tang dynasties.
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| (Colored sculptures) |
In 1900 (the 26th year of the Qing Guang Xu reign), from the Sutra
Cave were earthed 4,500 pieces of cultural relics dating from 250
to 1002 including embroideries, painting on silk, priceless manuscripts
and literature in ancient Tibetan, Sanskrit, Uygur, Yutian and kuchah
languages. This is the biggest find in the world about ancient oriental
culture.
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