絲路 與 石窟
絲路 與 石窟
SilkRoad and Grottoes
LongMen Grottoes
This picture shows the main Buddha statue of Middle Binyang Cave which was built by King XuanWun of BeiWei Dynasty to commemorate his father King XiaoWen and his mother Queen ZhaoWen. The central statue is of Sakyamuni Buddha with his two disciples Adnan on his right and Kassapa on his left, they were flanked by 2 Bodhisattvas. This was officially the first cave built by Kings of BeiWei. Buddha statues in this cave didn’t share the same style as those found in the early caves of YunGang Grottoes
This picture shows a bas-relief from the Middle Binyang Cave, it illustrated a scene that King XiaoWen and crowned prince XuanWun walking in to a ceremony. The King was on the right side flanked by body guards. The crowned prince was on the 3rd one on left in the front row who wore a distinctive coronet. This bas-relief was stolen in the 1930s and is now being kept at the New York Museum of Art.
This picture shows the paired bas-relief from the Middle Binyang Cave, it illustrated, in the same scene, that Queen ZhaoWen walked in to a ceremony flanking by many royal servants.
From the very first cave of LongMen Grottoes started to be built, statues in its caves exhibited strong Chinese artistic presentation style. Nonetheless, in few caves, original flavor of BeiWei grottoes were still be be found, one example was this cave 1136. Its main statue was Maitreya Bodhisattva, in its halo were several musician FeiTian. The overall presentation style and the features of FeiTian were almost identical to those found in YunGang Grottoes, reminding all of its immediate origin.
This is the symbol and icon of LongMen Grottoes, Feng Xian Temple. It was completely excavated in 675AD, in Tang Dynasty. Emperess WuZheTian was a patron of it. It was said the look of the main buddha statue closely followed the look of Emperess WuZheTian.
The main buddha statue had a very femine look and feel which was an extremely rare kind of presentation of the Buddha.
This is a statue of GuanYin Bodhisattva outside by the entrance of the Cave of Ten Thousand Buddhas. Its appearance suggested the shape of a charming female in the Tang era. Guan Yin was supposed to be a sinicized Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva which traditionally was presented in male form. Guan Yin in female form was completely Chinese in origin. The patron of this statue was the head master num from a temple near by.
These 2 statues represented the 2 patrons of the Ten Thousand Buddha Cave. The first one was the head master num of the palace of Emperess WuZheTian, and the second statue was the head of servants of the Empresses. The content of this picture together with those from the previous 2 indicated a very strong social statues for females in Tang era.
The LongMen Grottoes are located 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) south of present day LuòYáng in Hénán province, China. They are considered to be some of the finest examples of Chinese Buddhist art. BeiWei Dynasty in 493 AD started to build these grottoes as a replacement of the YunGang Grottoes after the capital city of BeiWei was relocated to Luoyang. Patrons and donors included emperors, royal family members and nobles from BeiWei, Bei Zhou and Tang Dynasty.
Artistic style of LongMen Grottoes showed strong and clear influence of Chinese culture starting at the very early stage. Although at the same time some of its caves also displayed almost unchanged artistic style from the early days of YunGang Grottoes. As time evolved in to Tang Dynasty, less and less traces of early Buddhist art style could be found from the caves, while at the same time more and more Chinese cultural elements and earthly, secular contents were incorporated in to the sculptures of the caves. It was at LongMen Grottoes that Buddhist cave-cutting and sculpture art completed its localization transition, thus finally became an integral part of Chinese culture.