For travelers who like historical sites, the name Hexi Corridor will be familiar. It is an important passage of the Silk Road, and it is also an important area for the spread of Buddhism to the east. To this day, we can still visit In this passage, you can see ancient caves that have been preserved.
In addition to the famous Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, Yulin Grottoes and Tianti Mountain Grottoes, there is actually another grotto that is also an important relic hidden in Zhangye, which is the Wenshushan Grottoes in Sunan County.
Before admiring the Wenshu Mountain Grottoes, let’s first get to know this temple. The earliest record of Wenshu Temple can be traced back to the ancient temple during the Taining reign of Emperor Ming of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, Wenshu Temple was even more massive than before. Once famous all over the world.
For more than 1,500 years, the incense of Wenshu Temple has never stopped. Even though there are not many tourists in the temple now, local people still come here one after another to worship Buddha. Especially during the temple fair, it is even more crowded. The liveliness of the Buddhist holy land of Wenshu Temple still continues.
The existing Wenshu Temple is large in scale, mainly including the front mountain and the back mountain, with more than 360 buildings, more than 70 courtyards, and more than 100 caves. Not only are there a large number of buildings, but there are also rich religious elements here. Taoism, Chinese Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism merge here and live in harmony.
Grottoes were excavated in the Wei, Jin, Sui, Tang, (Western Xia), Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Today, only more than 30 grottoes have been preserved, of which only 5 are available for tourists to visit. After reading these grottoes, I summarized two features of the Wenshu Mountain Grottoes that surprised me.
One: early murals. You can see many distinctive murals in the Wenshu Mountain Grottoes, such as early Chinese murals, such as the sfumato method in the Mogao Grottoes, etc. You can all see them here one by one. It can be seen that these highly valuable murals continued and developed the mural pattern of Mogao Grottoes and became an extremely important relic for the study of early Chinese cave murals.
Second: Xixia murals: There are not many Xixia murals preserved in China today. Most tourists know that there are some remains of Xixia murals in Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang and Yulin Grottoes in Anxi, but in fact, in Wenshu Mountain The grottoes also preserve exquisite Xixia murals and are also an important place to appreciate Xixia culture.
What is more distinctive than the statues are the murals around the tower pillars. The themes are mostly Thousand Buddhas, Dharma Pictures, Seven Buddhas, Ji Lo Tian and other themes. The painting method is the same as that of the early Hexi Grottoes. The three-dimensional effect and exquisiteness of the Western Regions blooming painting method are no less than those of the early murals in the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang.
Of course, the more distinctive mural is the Maitreya Sutra, which is one of the few Xixia murals preserved to this day in China. The entire set of Maitreya Sutra murals is 3.05 meters wide and 2.3 meters high, and includes 12 halls and attics. , gate tower and other building complexes, covering more than 239 characters.
The number sounds a bit complicated, but if you look closely, you will not feel that these characters and buildings are crowded. The proportions of the buildings and characters are coordinated, and the spatial order is appropriate. Therefore, at first glance, you will feel that they are very harmonious and just right. feeling.
Let’s take a look at the Maitreya Bodhisattva in the play. Unlike many Maitreya Bodhisattva in the Hexi Corridor, the Maitreya Bodhisattva in the Wenshu Mountain Grottoes is dressed in Tibetan clothing. It can be seen that Tibetan Buddhism had penetrated deeply into the world at that time. here, and integrated into local beliefs.
As exquisite as Manjushri Bodhisattva are the statues of heavenly kings wearing armor on both sides. They look majestic and lifelike, especially the eyes are vividly painted, as if real people are guarding the cave.
A few words cannot fully reflect all the characteristics of the Wenshu Mountain Grottoes, but it is undeniable that this rarely visited grotto bears witness to the civilization of early Chinese grottoes and displays the Buddhist art of the Sixteen Kingdoms period. .
In particular, some Xixia murals have filled the shortcomings of the Mogao Grottoes and made the Chinese grottoes murals more complete. It can be seen that whether it is cultural relic value or tourism value, it is actually underestimated by many tourists.
(Author: Stop the horse, life is about walking, and the journey needs to be recorded!) # Let the World Heritage Come to Life #