絲路 與 石窟
絲路 與 石窟
SilkRoad and Grottoes
MaiJi Shan Grottoes
These 2 gigantic statues are the main buddha Amitabha and one of his serving bodhisattva from Cave 98 at the western cliff. The statue of Buddha Amitabha stands above a piece of cloud, suggesting that this set of statue represents Ambassador Buddha who welcomes all entering the Enlightened World.
Cave 71 was one of the first patch of caves excavated at MaiJiShan at HouQing era. It wore a thin kasaya that exposed its right shoulder, and with fine paralell draperies. All these carried heavy influence of Ghandara style.
Cave 138 was excavated in Bei Wei era, appro at late 5th century. Notice compare to Cave 71, the feature of the statue became less "western". Its kasaya became multi-layered and was much thicker (adapting to cold weather locally).
Cave 4 was excavated in Bei Zhou era at the end of 5th entury. It was located at the top of the eastern cliff, about 80 meters above ground.
These 3 gigantic statues are from Cave 13 that locates in the middle of the eastern cliff of MaiJiShan. Built in late 6th century, the main buddha statue in the middle stood at over 15 meters tall. It's now the main icon of the site.
This is remain of a bigger mural on the ceiling outside of Cave 4. It was regarded as original from Bei Zhou era. Note the lifelike horses in the picture.
This picture shows 2 FeiTians from another part of a bigger mural outside of Cave 4. The artistic style of these 2 FeiTians were very different then those shown in Cave 428 of MoGao Grottoes, these 2 looked like traditional Chinese style fairy.
This picture shows another part of a broken mural of Cave 4. It illustrated a typical Chinese style city wall and its guard tower.
The MaiJiShan Grottoes are a total of 194 caves excavated on steep cliffs of the hill of MaiJiShan in Tianshui, Gansu Province, appro. 300km to the west of XiAn. The first few caves were cut out by a regional governing regime Hou Qin in between 384–417 AD whereas the latest ones were built in Sui Dynasty at the end of the 6th century.
Tianshui is located slightly off the main route of the Silk Road, but it was considered as part of the greater Chang An area in the context of cultural heritage. In late 4th century, Buddhist culture were spreaded to this area after Hou Qin defeated Hou Liang - another regional governing regimes centered at WuWei at the eastern end of He Xi Corridor, thus acquired Buddhist culture elements that Hou Liang had taken by force from QiuCi earlier in the 4th century AD. Therefore early artistic styles of MaiJiShan Grottoes were regarded as being directly inherited from QiuCi, Ghandara styles.
In Tang, Song and Ming Dynasties, many caves and sculptures at MaiJiShan Grottoes were renovated hence lost their original artistic flavor.