Located on the side of Mingsha Mountain, the Mogao Grottoes are widely praised as the first light of civilization and a treasure trove of Buddhist art, including Buddhist architecture, sculptures and paintings. Caves of different sizes were dug in five tiers in the Mountain. Various grand and exquisite Buddha figures serve to demonstrate the sophisticated skills of the craftsmen. Colorful murals covering 45,000 square meters depict Buddhist stories, natural sceneries, flying apsaras, folk customs such as farming, weaving and hunting, as well as wedding and funerals, and different festivals. Based on the artistic traditions of the Han people and people of the Western Regions, ancient artists absorbed art forms from Iran, India and Greece to develop special art items with local characteristics. As a valuable resource for studying the politics, economy, culture, religion, national relations and foreign exchanges of ancient China, the Mogao Grottoes are a treasury for understanding the development of human civilization and culture. Welcome to China, Chinatourguide.com is pleasure to provide service for your China tours, We also provide Thailand tour packages or Cambodia tour packages.
In the early 1900s, a Chinese Taoist named Wang Yuanlu appointed himself guardian of some of these temples. Wang discovered a walled up area behind one side of a corridor leading to a main cave. Behind the wall was a small cave stuffed with an enormous hoard of manuscripts dating from 406 to 1002 AD. These included old hemp paper scrolls in Chinese and many other languages, paintings on hemp, silk or paper, numerous damaged figurines of Buddhas, and other Buddhist paraphernalia. The subject matter in the scrolls covers diverse material. Along with the expected Buddhist canonical works are original commentaries, apocryphal works, workbooks, books of prayers, Confucian works, Taoist works, Nestorian Christian works, works from the Chinese government, administrative documents, anthologies, glossaries, dictionaries, and calligraphic exercises. Wang sold the majority of them to Aurel Stein in 1907 for the paltry sum of 220 pounds.
Over the next 1,000 years, 10 dynasties rose and fell, and artists of each dynasty contributed grottoes. Work on the grottoes ceased during the Yuan dynasty (1368–1644), and ever since the grottos have remained through for hundreds of years, protected from natural erosion by their cave location. Today, 492 caves are still standing. Altogether there are 2,000 statues and over 45,000 separate murals.
