What are the architectural forms of Zhiti Grottoes and Indian Grottoes?

Zhiti Grottoes and Picoro Grottoes are two architectural forms of Indian Grottoes. Zhiti Grottoes is a tower for storing relics, which is characterized by a long and narrow horseshoe-shaped hole plane surrounded by carved columns and divided into two spaces, with an auditorium in front and a circular patio in the back, that is, a dome well, also known as a caisson. "Bikoro Cave" is a place where monks live, practice, lecture and meet.

"Intellectual body" means "tower". There is a tower in the center of Zhiti Cave, so it is also called Tamiao Cave. The scale of Zhiti Cave is generally relatively large, because it is for believers to visit and watch images. In order to make the building structure more solid, the top of the tower is usually connected with the ceiling of the cave, which can play a supporting role like a pillar, so it is called the central column vividly.

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Zhiti Cave, a Buddhist temple dedicated to retaining slopes and Buddha statues in Buddhism, is mainly used for religious ceremonies. The plane is a vertical rectangle, and the semicircle is the end point. The semicircle has a retaining slope, and there is a row of columns along the side wall, and the columns also bypass the retaining slope. India's tower is modeled after a tomb, with a round bottom; The ancient pagodas in China are built according to the traditional pavilion style, and the square design is adopted, so the intellectual grottoes in the two countries are very different.

After the grottoes were introduced into China, they gradually disappeared, and their role as temples has been replaced by magnificent temples. However, the "Zhiti Cave" has been inherited and developed in the Mogao Grottoes. The ancient artists in China skillfully combined the wooden architecture with the grottoes, focusing on the development of eaves and corridors. The eaves of caves are conducive to protecting caves, and corridors are convenient for communication between caves.

Monk Grottoes and Zen Grottoes are generally simple, while Zhiti Grottoes are much more magnificent and exquisite, decorated with sculptures and murals, and some have exquisite patterns carved on the ground! Among them, the Buddha statue displayed on the side facing the entrance of the intellectual body occupies the most prominent position and must be the most important image in the whole cave. Incense burners, flowers and other offerings are usually displayed in front of this Buddha statue.