Longmen Grottoes Manuscripts

Longmen Grottoes is one of the treasures of stone carving art in China, a world cultural heritage, a national key cultural relic protection unit and a national AAAAA

Longmen Grottoes is one of the treasures of stone carving art in China, a world cultural heritage, a national key cultural relic protection unit and a national AAAAA-level tourist attraction. It is located in Longmen Mountain and Xiangshan Mountain on both sides of the Yi River in the southern suburbs of Luoyang City. Longmen Grottoes, Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes are also called the three major grottoes in China. Enjoy it with me.

Data 1:

Introduction to Longmen Grottoes

The Longmen Grottoes were dug in the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and after more than 400 years of large-scale construction in the Eastern Wei Dynasty, the Western Wei Dynasty, the Northern Qi Dynasty, the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty, the length from north to south was 1 km. Today, there are 2,345 grottoes, more than 654.38 million statues and more than 2,800 inscriptions. Among them, Longmen Twenty is the essence of Weibei calligraphy, and Chu Suiliang's A Que Buddhist Shrine Monument is a model of regular script art in the early Tang Dynasty.

Longmen Grottoes lasted for a long time, spanning many dynasties. They reflect the development and changes of China ancient politics, economy, religion, culture and many other fields from different aspects with a large number of physical images and written materials, and have made great contributions to the innovation and development of China Grottoes. In 2000, it was listed as a world cultural heritage by UNESCO.

Longmen Grottoes began to be excavated around the time when Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty moved the capital to Luoyang (AD 493), and were built on a large scale for more than 400 years after the Eastern and Western Wei Dynasties, the Northern Qi Dynasty, the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the Sui and Tang Dynasties and the Song Dynasty. Densely distributed on the cliffs of the east and west mountains of Yishui, the length from north to south is 1km, and there are more than 97,000 Buddha statues. The largest Buddha statue is as high as 17. 14 m, and the smallest is only 2 cm.

There are more than 50 large and medium-sized caves in the Northern Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties on the cliff of Xishan Mountain. Guyang Cave, Binyang Middle Cave, Lianhua Cave, Huangfugong Cave, Weizi Cave, Putai Cave, Huoshao Cave, Cixiang Kiln, Ludong Cave, etc. It is a representative cave in the Northern Wei Dynasty. The representative grottoes in the Tang Dynasty are Qianxi Temple, Binyang South Cave, Binyang North Cave (the above two caves were decorated in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the Buddha statues were completed in the Sui and early Tang Dynasties), Jingshan Temple, Cliff Three Buddha Temple, Wanfo Cave, Huijian Cave, Fengxian Temple, Pure Land Temple, Longge Temple and Jinan Cave. Dongshan has many caves and sacred sites in the Tang Dynasty, including 20 large and medium-sized caves, such as Erlianhua Cave, Kanjing Temple Cave, Dawanwu Buddha Cave (also known as Leigutai Cave) and Wangdong Cave in Gaoping County.

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Message 2:

The value of Longmen Grottoes

Art of calligraphy

By 20 14, there will be 2345 caves and more than 80 pagodas in Dongxishan. Longmen Grottoes is the place with the largest number of ancient steles in China, which is called the ancient forest of steles. * * There are more than 2,860 stone inscriptions, among which the long-standing Twenty Pieces of Longmen and the One Que Buddhist Shrine Monument by Chu are the models of Wei Bei Harmony respectively, which can be called the fine works of China calligraphy art. There are more than 1 1000 existing Buddha statues in Longmen Mountain. The largest Buddha statue is 17. 14 meters high, and the smallest Buddha statue with a head height of 4 meters is in Lianhua Cave, and each statue is only 2 cm long, which is called micro-sculpture.

Longmen Grottoes are also the art history and treasures of calligraphy. The famous calligraphy masterpiece "Longmen Twenty" is the best calligraphy selected by later northern extension connoisseurs from many stone inscriptions in Longmen Grottoes. These inscriptions not only record the motive and purpose of the statue of the wishing man, but also provide a basis for the archaeological staging of the grottoes. Kang Youwei, a scholar in Qing Dynasty, strongly advocated writing with Wei Bei in the whole society, praising Wei Bei's ten beauties, such as jumping brushwork, natural structure and rich flesh and blood. Today, Wei Bei is widely used as a slogan and decorative text. It can be seen that twenty products occupy a decisive position in calligraphy.

Buddhist culture

Longmen Grottoes is an artistic expression of Buddhist culture, but it also reflects the political, economic and cultural trends at that time. The grotto is a large stone carving art museum, because it preserves a large number of physical materials such as religion, art, architecture, calligraphy, music, clothing, medicine and so on. [2]

Cultural significance

Longmen Grottoes is the most concentrated place where royal nobles made wishes and statues in the Northern Wei and Tang Dynasties. It embodies the will and behavior of the royal family and has a strong ethnic and religious color.

Color. The statues of the two dynasties reflect very different styles of the times. The statues in the Northern Wei Dynasty lost the rough, majestic and vigorous features of the statues in Yungang Grottoes here, but the flavor of life gradually became strong and tended to be lively, delicate and gentle. These statues of the Northern Wei Dynasty have slender faces, thin shoulders and straight chests, and clothes lines are carved with straight knives, which are vigorous and simple. Among the numerous caves carved in the Northern Wei Dynasty, the most representative ones are Guyang Cave, Binyang Middle Cave, Lotus Cave and Cave Temple. Among them, Guyangdong concentrated a group of statues of royal aristocrats and court ministers in the early stage of the Northern Wei Dynasty's move to Luoyang, which typically reflected the historical model of the Northern Wei Dynasty's national worship of Buddhism. These magnificent stone carvings are precious records of the integration of China traditional culture and foreign civilization.

During the Northern Wei Dynasty, people advocated thinness as beauty, so the Buddha sculpture also pursued the artistic style of showing bones and clearing images. In the Tang Dynasty, people regarded being fat as beauty.

Characterized by the face, broad shoulders and bulging chest of the Buddha statue in the Tang Dynasty, the carving of costume patterns adopts the method of circular knife, which is natural and smooth. The sculptures in Longmen Grottoes in the Tang Dynasty inherited the excellent traditions of the Northern Wei Dynasty, absorbed the culture of the Han nationality, and created a vigorous, vivid, simple and natural realistic style, reaching the peak of the carving art of Buddha statues. Among the key grottoes in Longmen Grottoes in Tang Dynasty, the large-scale and magnificent statue of Ashe Road is the most famous. This cliff-like Buddhist shrine carved according to Huayan Jing, centered on the elegant and extraordinary Lushena Buddha, expresses the ideal artistic conception of the Buddhist world full of peace with the image of an artistic group full of modal texture in a week. This group of statues embodies the powerful material strength and spiritual strength of the Tang Dynasty Empire, and shows the highest achievement of the Tang Dynasty sculpture art..