Oriental treasures - Mogao Grottoes

Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes is China's richest and best-preserved treasure house of cave art. Grotto art is a unified whole of architecture, sculpture and painting, and it is a perfect three-dimensional art with organic combination of practicality and artistry. on December 11, 1987, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee included Mogao Grottoes in the list of World Heritage Sites.

The murals of Dunhuang are also the treasure of the world art, which is extremely rich in content and can be roughly divided into: statue paintings, sutra paintings, story paintings, feeder paintings, paintings of Buddhist monuments, architectural paintings, landscape paintings, animal paintings, decorative pattern paintings, and so on, in nine categories. There are very vivid paintings of people's lives in the sutra paintings, story paintings, and Buddhist history paintings. A great variety of murals. From many aspects reflect the ancient social reality, for the study of China's feudal society, history, culture, politics, economy, military, science and technology, religion, architecture, transportation, clothing, music and dance, and folklore provides an extremely valuable image of historical materials. Therefore, it is internationally known as "the library on the wall", special "museum", and a "image history" spanning thousands of years.

Dunhuang colorful sculptures are mainly Buddha statues, including Shakyamuni, Maitreya, Yakushi, Amitabha, the Third Buddha, the Seventh Buddha, etc.; Bodhisattva statues are Guanyin, Manjushri, Pushyen, Dasheshi, Jizo, coercion, and the Bodhisattva who provides support. The disciples are Ananda, Gautama, the Ten Great Disciples and Lohan. There are also the heavenly kings, vajra, earth god and so on. Colorful forms of sculpture are round sculpture, relief sculpture, shadow sculpture, good karma clay and so on. In addition to round, relief sculpture, ninety-six, one hundred and thirty caves two Buddha, one hundred and forty-eight, one hundred and fifty-eight two large reclining Buddha for the stone tire clay, the rest are clay, a single image and group statue of the Buddha at the center, flanked by disciples, Bodhisattvas, Heavenly Kings, Rex, as few as three, more than ten a body to ninety-six caves of thirty-four and a half meters Maitreya seated statue of the highest, as small as ten centimeters. Most of the characters with exaggerated color expression, different demeanor. Its rich connotation, can be called a thousand years of ancient Chinese Buddhist color history Dunhuang has a lot of mystery, Mogao Grottoes appeared ten thousand golden light is one of them.

The rain cleared, the air is fresh in the morning or at dusk, if the city from Dunhuang drive along the Andun highway to the southeast, will be the child ten miles away from the three dangerous mountains present a peculiar scene attracted. See this steep rise, split the top of the mountain, in the sunrise or sunset under the light, radiating colorful light, Mogao Caves of this peculiar scene, for thousands of years attracted the attention of countless people. The earliest record of this phenomenon, is the first year of the Tang Dynasty Shengli (698 AD) Li Huaizhang "repair Mogao Grottoes niche monument", the monument records: "Mogao Grottoes, Turkic Qin Jianyuan two years, there is a Shamen music monks, the precepts of the line of pure emptiness, the executive mind quiet, tasted the staff of tin forest field, line to this mountain, suddenly saw the golden light, like a thousand Buddha, so the hollow rock, make a niche cave... ..." The mountain referred to in the text is the three dangerous mountains, the niche created, is the earliest cave of Dunhuang Thousand Buddha Cave.

China's earliest record of the topography of the mountains and rivers, "Shangshu - Yugong chapter" in the "scampering three seedlings in the three dangerous" words, visible as early as in the late Neolithic, where there is human activity. According to the "Du Shi Zhi" under the three dangerous note: the mountain's "three peaks towering like a dangerous fall, so the cloud three dangerous", the three dangerous mountain also got its name from this. If you climb to the top of the mountain, you can look east to Anxi, the west end of Dunhuang, the mountains and trees, as far as the eye can see, so the ancient and the "look at the mountain" said.

For the Mogao Grottoes of the Buddha's light, there are two explanations in the scientific community. The first explanation is that the three dangerous mountain pure for the sandy magma rock layer, belongs to the Yumen system old age mountain, altitude of about one thousand eight hundred and forty-six meters, the rock color ochre and black, the rock also contains quartz and many other minerals, the mountain does not produce grass, due to the composition of the mountain rock and the color of the more special, and thus in the rain just after the dusk will be approaching, and the air is exceptionally fresh, the setting sunlight a light on the mountain of various colors of the rocks will be the same as the surface of the rock! Not yet dry rain and moisture in the air together reflect the colorful light, the brilliant scene of ten thousand golden light in front of people's eyes. Another explanation is: Mogao Grottoes were built on the cliffs at the eastern foot of Mingsha Mountain. There is a stream in front of the cliff, in the Tang Dynasty called "Dangquan", now called the Daquan River, the river on the east side of the three dangerous mountains and the west side of the Mingsha Mountain opposite each other, forming a pinched angle. In the evening, is about to fall west into the Gobi sea of the setting sun, penetrate the air, will be colorful thousands of sunshine sprinkled on the Mingsha Mountain, reflecting thousands of golden light, which is what we sometimes see "the setting sun in the west of the colorful sunshine fly" of the magnificent scenery. Whether it appears in the three dangerous mountains, or the two directions of the so-called "golden light" is a natural phenomenon under special conditions, the ancients due to the limitations of the productivity at that time and religious superstitious concepts of the bondage, can not scientifically explain this natural phenomenon, only with God, Buddha manifestation of the spirit of the conclusions, as for the Le Fu monks, the concept of his in order to As for the Le Fu monk, the idea that he was in order to God and its Buddha, show their piety, and then there is a "suddenly see the golden light, the shape of the dry Buddha" of the mysterious saying circulated around the world.

In the Dunhuang Cave murals, the most interesting is the story painting, rich in distinctive flavor of life. Story painting can be roughly divided into three categories, one is to promote the life story of Sakyamuni Buddha story, depicting his birth to the main plot, like a comic strip. Such as the Northern Zhou two hundred and ninety grottoes, all images nearly eighty images, is China's only surviving Buddha story painting. The second category is to promote the birth of Shakyamuni before the reincarnation of the world to teach the living beings of the story of this life, roughly dozens of kinds, are the performance of his former life to cast the head, cut meat, feed the eagle, digging out the eyes, the body of a thousand nails, give up their bodies to feed the tiger's tragic scenes, to celebrate his self-sacrificing spirit. One of the main stories repeatedly depicted is the story of "King Gautama's Cutting of Flesh for the Pigeon", which says that an eagle chased a pigeon, which fled to King Gautama and asked for protection. The hawk told King Vishnu that if he did not return the pigeon, he would starve to death. In order to make both ends meet, King Vishnu used a knife to cut off his own flesh to ransom the pigeon. The hawk demanded that the flesh be as heavy as the pigeon's body, and the king almost cut off all the flesh, but it was still not as heavy as the pigeon's, so he just lifted himself up and sat down on a scale. This story reflects the Buddha's touching compassion.

Another story is "King Moonbeam's head", which says that King Moonbeam was famous for his charitable deeds. The king of a small country, Vimalasna, was jealous and wanted to harm the Moon King, so he recruited Brahmins with heavy rewards, and whoever could get the Moon King's head was promised to "divide the country into half a kingdom and give a woman to marry him". A Brahmin named Laoduqiao was recruited to beg for the head of King Yueguang, and King Yueguang agreed to do so. When Laoduqiao tried to cut his head with a sword, he was punished by the god of the tree with his divine power. The Moon King then said to the Tree God, "I have chopped off my own head nine hundred and ninety-nine times under this tree; if I do this once, it will fulfill a thousand", and so he drew his neck to the head.

Another story, "The Story of the Life of Prince Sudha," tells of Prince Sudhana of the country of Yapa, who was a charitable person who responded to every request. The enemy of the country's enemies to buy eight Brahmins, begging him for the country's white elephants in the hundred battles, the Prince generously give. The prince gave him a generous offer. The minister reported this to the king, who was furious and banished Sudhana from the country. Prince Sudhana drove away with his wife and children, begging on the way, and gave all the horses, carts, and clothes, and then went to the faraway Dantes Mountain to live in seclusion and practice. Later a Brahmin came to ask for his two sons. Suda took advantage of his wife's absence and tied up his sons with a rope and handed them over to the Brahmin, and his wife returned to him in pain. Later the Brahmin brought the children to the country of Yeboo to sell them, and when the king knew it, he was so shaken that he ransomed his grandchildren and welcomed the Prince back to his country.

Dunhuang mural paintings, there is another category is to promote the cause of the deeds of the cause of story, "Nanda home cause" is the story of Sakya tried to persuade his younger brother to become a monk. Sakyamuni's half-brother named Nanda, had a wife Sundari beautiful, Sakyamuni ordered shaving master for Nanda shaved his hair, forcing him to become a monk. Nandu was so in love with his wife that he ran home one day and was discovered by Sakyamuni, who called him back and disciplined him severely, and led him to visit the heavenly palaces to see all the celestial maidens, and then traveled to the hells, where he was tortured by the woks and broils, and Nandu repented of his mistake, and became a luohan, having become a monk. The story of "The Prince of Good Deeds and the Sea of People" tells that King Lenavarmi had two sons, one named Good Deeds and the other named Bad Deeds. When Good Deeds saw that the people were killing and harming themselves for food and clothing, he gave the poor people money from the royal treasury. When the treasury was about to be empty, he decided to go to the sea of men to seek the jewel of Mani. The Evil Thing traveled with him. After the Good Thing took the pearl, the Evil Thing took it away and stabbed the Good Thing in the eyes. After recovering from his wounds, the Good Samaritan was saved by the King of Cows and a shepherd, and he was displaced to a foreign land, where he lived by playing the zither and begging for food, and was later used by King Rishikeshwaran as a guardian of the garden. The king's daughter met him in the garden and fell in love with him and married him. The king's daughter met him in the garden and fell in love with him, so she married him.

The Buddhists recognized the weaknesses of human nature very y, and did not give up the hope of repentance because of a person's deep sins, but before he repented, he had to be made to go through great tribulations. The "Marginal Pin of Subtle Bhikkhuni" is a story of the "boundlessness of the Dharma". In her previous life, she was guilty of murdering her stepchildren with nails, and in her present life she suffered retribution: her husband was bitten to death by a snake, some of her sons were eaten by wolves, and some drowned in the water. Her mother's house caught fire and the whole family died. On the night she gave birth, her husband came home drunk and cooked her newborn baby, forcing her to eat it. When she was forced to run away, she met an elder who was visiting his wife's grave and married him. Seven days after the marriage, her husband died violently, and she was martyred and saved by robbers who came to rob the grave, but she was forced to marry the robbers, who were convicted and executed, and she was martyred again, and saved by wolves and foxes who raided the grave. In the end, the subtle to see the Buddha, was the degree of bhikkhuni.

In addition to Buddhist content, Mogao Caves murals there are some traditional Chinese myths or gods and goddesses as the theme, such as Queen Mother of the West, East Wanggong, Fuxi Nuwa, Thunderer and Rainer and other nature myths, which are common in the Han Dynasty Mu murals. Their appearance in the Dunhuang caves reflects a facet of the Chinese body of thought since the Wei and Jin dynasties, when Buddhism gradually merged with Taoism and Confucianism. In addition, there are a number of historical events were moved on the mural, especially Zhang Qian through the Western Regions, has been more detailed performance.

The academic value of these murals is self-evident, for us ordinary people, from the perspective of appreciation alone can make people get great pleasure. Ancient art craftsmen of all races showed high artistic attainments when they painted the murals, and arranged the murals according to the era, almost a history of ancient Chinese art. For Dunhuang, we can only use one word to describe it appropriately, that is - vast and profound.