Caves of Mogao

The caves of Mogao (莫高窟) form a system of 492 temples close to Dunhuang, in the province of Gansu in China, in margin of the Gobi Desert . They are also known under the name of caves of the 1.000 Buddhas , or caves of Dunhuang .

History

A local legend affirms that in 366 PC, the buddhist monk Lezun (Lo-tsun) had a vision of thousand Bouddha S, and convainquit a pilgrim of the Silk route to build the first temples. The temples multiplied, to arrive at more than one thousand. IV {{E}} at the 14th century, the monks of Dunhuang gathered manuscripts coming from the occident, and of the pilgrims started to decorate the walls of the caves of paintings. Those cover 42.000 m ². The main part of installations date however from the Dynastie Tang between VIIe and Xe century. The caves were abandoned at the 14th century.

The buddhist monks carried out in these caves an austere life to the continuation of the illumination. Paintings, assistances with the Meditation, were also used for the instruction of the illiterates legends Buddhist beliefs.

Paintings describe the life and the work of the Sakyamuni, the historical Bouddha. But this place of piety also shows scenes where several Eastern cultures are mèlent, in particular Hindou ists.

The caves were the subject of several waves of degradation: the Moslems deteriorated the statuary. The cavities were used as refuges with white Russian at the beginning of the XXe century. On the other hand, the Cultural revolution saved the site, probably thanks to the intervention of Zhou Enlai.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a Taoist Chinese of the name of Wang Yuanlu, known as " the Wang" abbot; , was made guard of these temples where he discovered a considerable whole of handwritten former to XIe century, in one of the caves, hidden until there. Rumors with regard to them attracted European explorers, who crossed the Asia to try to see them and to obtain them. Wang began an ambitious restoration of the temples, with the assistance of donations resulting from the cities close, but so provided by European explorers such Sir Aurel Stein and Paul Pelliot. Unfortunately, only a quarter of the documents discovered remained in China, the remainder being dispersed all over the world, in particular with the Musée Guimet in Paris and with the British Museum in London.

Description

The caves of Mogao are the best known ones among the Chinese Buddhist caves, and are with Longmen and Yungang one of the three notorious Chinese sites for their sculptures and their paintings. These last are with religious set of themes but also recall the daily life of the monks. The caves are very diverse sizes and were dug in a sandstone cliff. Only about thirty cavities are worth visiting by the public.

Nowadays, the site is an important tourist attraction, and an object of archaeological research. The conservation of the places however poses many problems of which that of a progressive stranding for which the installation of doors to the caves tries to cure.

The caves of Mogao are registered on the Liste of the world heritage of UNESCO since 1987.

See too

Buddhism in China
Handwritten of Dunhuang

Reference

Hopkirk, Peter (1980). Foreign Devils one the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures off Chinese Central Asia . Amherst: The University off Massachusetts Near. ISBN 0-87023-435-8.
Peter Hopkirk, Buddhas and prowlers on the Silk route , 1995, Picquier. ISBN 2-87730-215-6 (French translation of the precedent)
L Von Saalfeld, the valley of the thousand Buddhas , For Science, May 2007, p84-89

See too

External bonds

Descriptive UNESCO
international Project of Dunhuang
Mogao Cellars - Art off Dunhuang Cellars (TravelChinaGuide)
Document of evaluation (1987) Evaluation preliminary to the inscription with the world heritage realized by ICOMOS

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