In China's ancient history, the Yulin area of Yan'an in northern Shaanxi was ruled by ethnic minorities for a long time, and countless historical relics were left here, but due to its remote location, the historical and cultural monuments here are not very famous.
In Yan'an, in northern Shaanxi, there is such a city- Zichang, Zichang City is located in the middle of the Loess Plateau, is the hometown of the revolutionary hero Xie Zichang, is also the foothold of the Central Red Army's Long March and the starting point of the Anti-Japanese Crusade, in the late stage of the agrarian revolution was also the seat of the CPC Central Committee and the Chinese Soviet Government, after the founding of New China, it was identified as one of the old revolutionary base areas, it is said that dozens of soldiers in this city have been awarded the rank of major general or above, which is also very rare for a county-level city in the northwest.
Today, I want to talk about not the long revolutionary history here, but a historical site that is still little known today, the Zhongshan Grottoes. According to historical records, the Zhongshan Grottoes are located fifteen kilometers west of Zichang City, on the banks of the Xiuyan River. It was founded in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, also known as the Ten Thousand Buddhas Rock, Puji Temple, Great Puji Zen Temple, Shigong Temple, the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the northern ethnic minorities among buddhism is also very popular, Buddhism at that time has formed a north and south region, the northern representative figures are Dao'an and Kumarosh. The rulers of the Sixteen Kingdoms established by ethnic minorities also knew how to use Buddhism to consolidate their rule, so they also highly respected the people's belief in Buddhism.
The Zhongshan Grottoes were slowly built since then, and it is recorded that around the grottoes, there were also ancient pagodas, monasteries stretching out, and at most there were more than 500 monks, which also became one of the important birthplaces of the spread of Buddhism in the northwest at that time.
From the early Jin Taihe period in the early days of construction, after more than a thousand years of Tang, Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, it is conceivable that the scale of the Zhongshan Grottoes should also be not small. However, due to the war chaos in the frontier in history, the eighteen cave grottoes of that year have only five caves found and excavated now, and the rest have yet to be discovered by people's archaeology, but the five caves that have been excavated are also national first-class cultural relics, and it can be imagined that it is exquisite.
The grotto is located on the northern route of the ancient Silk Road, built on a mountain, sitting north to south. According to the historical book "Anding County Chronicle Rebuilding Stone Palace Temple Stele Record", there were originally the Middle Hall, the Ten Kings Hall, the Ming King Hall, and the King Kong Hall; There are also ten thousand Buddhas Tower, Bell and Drum Tower, Sanguan Tower, Guanyin Pavilion and Zen Abbot. The five grottoes excavated are the most complete preservation of the middle grotto, in the cave there are more than 10,000 large and small Buddha statues, so it is also known as the Ten Thousand Buddha Rock, and the middle grotto was built in the fourth year of Song Pingzhi (1067), then the grottoes built for more than a hundred years before this should also be very rich in content.
In order to protect these grottoes, in the late 1980s, the Zhongshan Grottoes Museum was built here, and these grottoes were even praised by experts as "the earliest grotto group in China", commenting that their artistic value was not under the Mogao Grottoes, Longmen and Yungang Grottoes. However, due to its location in the north, due to weathering and natural erosion, some of the statues in the grotto are no longer clear, and interested friends can also go here to take a look at the beautiful scenery.