There is a lone peak, like the shape of a wheat stack, standing on the Xiaolong Mountain in Tianshui, Gansu. The grottoes attached to the sunny side of the Lone Peak have sharpened their toughness through the millennia and rejuvenated their appearance in the past and the present. Here, there is a strong historical atmosphere and a deep Buddhist culture.
A Silk Road passage, to and from the Chinese and Western monks, exchange of classic culture, echoing the millennium of the storm, generations of famous craftsmen have achieved the millennium Buddha country on Xiaolong Mountain - Maijishan Grottoes.
A panoramic view of the Maijishan Grottoes
It began in the Later Qin Dynasty
Maijishan Grottoes is located in the northern foothills of the western section of the Qinling Mountains, 45 kilometers southeast of Tianshui City, Gansu Province, and is one of the four major grottoes in mainland China. Maiji Mountain, where the grotto is located, is a lonely mountain with steep rock walls and surrounded by greenery, because the shape of the mountain resembles the shape of a farmer's wheat stack, so it is called Maiji.
The caves of the Maijishan Grottoes are connected by a boardwalk, which is extremely thrilling. Regarding the boardwalk, there is a folk legend of "cutting up the firewood of the South Mountain and piling up the wheat cliff". According to Xia Langyun, director and researcher of the Archaeological Research Office of the Maijishan Grotto Art Research Institute, in ancient times, the Maijishan Grottoes were royal grottoes, with higher architectural requirements, greater difficulty in opening the caves, and more wood required. In order to ensure the size and "lofty" status of the "Royal Grotto", the craftsmen must first accumulate firewood, then scaffolding it to the top of Maiji Mountain, and open the cave from a high place to build a statue, layer by layer. After the cave is built, a part of it is removed from the layers of scaffolding, and a part is left as a boardwalk for easy passage.
The "top-down" construction method leads to the folklore of "cutting down the firewood of the Southern Mountains and piling up the wheat cliffs". At present, there are still some pile holes in the cliff wall of Maiji Mountain, and future generations can experience the wisdom of the ancients "foolishly moving mountains" from these spots of chisel marks.
Maijishan Grottoes was founded in the Post-Qin Period, through the Northern Wei Taiwu Emperor extinction law, the Northern Zhou Wu emperor extinction method, the Sui Dynasty two earthquakes, the Tang Dynasty earthquake five times "adventure", in the reconstruction, suspension, continuation, restoration and other major actions of the past, with its strong internal motivation and external inclusiveness to survive, for posterity to see. At present, there are 221 cave niches in the cave, and more than 10,000 statues of various types of sculptures. Because of the preservation of the original sculptures of the Northern Dynasty and the high level of art, it is praised as the "Oriental Sculpture Museum".
Maijishan belongs to the Danxia landform, and it is advisable to open caves but not to carve stone, so the sculptures in the grottoes are mainly clay sculptures and stone tire clay sculptures. In terms of sculpture themes, there are Buddha statues, bodhisattvas, disciples, flying heavens and so on. Among them, the large ones are the West Cliff Buddha, which is more than 12 meters high, and the East Cliff Buddha, which is nearly 13 meters high. Xia Langyun said that the main sculptural value of the Maijishan Grottoes lies in the preservation of more advanced artistic appearances in ancient times, of which clay sculptures from the Southern and Northern Dynasties periods accounted for most of them. Due to the high location of the cave and the remote location of the grotto, for a period of time in ancient times, it formed a situation of "inaccessible", so the original sculpture of authentic sculpture was preserved. The sculptures in the main caves of the Southern and Northern Dynasties periods in the grotto are made by first-class top craftsmen, and the superb sculptural skills make each sculpture extremely vivid and exquisite.
For example, the famous sculpture "Whispering" in Cave 121 now shows a disciple in robes and a disciple in bodhisattva costume standing in the corner, leaning forward slightly. They folded their hands slightly, smiled knowingly, and talked happily and clapped quietly, making the solemn Buddhist hall harmonious and flexible. The statues are delicate, vivid and evocative, both static sculptures and interactive life.
Cave 121 of Mt. Maiji: Bodhisattvas and disciples "whisper" Courtesy photo/Sharon Yun
This "whisper" statue is one of the three business cards of the Maijishan Grottoes. There is also the main Buddha statue in the back of Cave 44, which is the Buddha statue business card of the three major business cards. This Buddha statue is a representative of the Buddha statue of the Western Wei Dynasty, which is located in a higher position and is relatively well preserved. During the Tang Dynasty earthquake, the front of Cave 44 collapsed, and there was no boardwalk, so for more than a thousand years, except for the baptism of the four seasons of the past, there was no longer the smoke of "human fireworks". For thousands of years, it has taken the original appearance of the Western Wei statues stored in the Tang Dynasty, sitting quietly without eating human fireworks, with a fresh face, a muddy texture like new, the color is still the same, and it has only experienced the cultivation of the wind and frost of the times in form, and it sits with a smile and looks at the life under the mountain with a smile.
Another business card is The Little Shami of the 9th Niche of Cave 133. This little Shami is younger in appearance, and Qi is looking at it from different lights and different angles, and its side expression is different. The thin eyes, the playful corners of the mouth, the slightly larger nose, the thick and naughty, the innocent appearance of the child, as if reveling in the blessings of the Buddha; its slightly smiling demeanor is also the commonality of some sculptures in the Western Wei period.
A Silk Road embodies integration
If the superb sculptural skills of ancient times have made the Maijishan Grottoes, then the combination of Buddhist culture from the west and Chinese culture has derived the Maijishan Grottoes.
A thousand years ago, the Silk Road ushered in the first of the four major translators of Chinese Buddhism, the western monk Kumarosh. At that time, when Buddhism was popular, grottoes were built in the Western Regions and the Lushan Mountains of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. According to the literature, the emperor Yao Xing, the son of the founding monarch yao Cang of the Later Qin Tianshui dynasty, believed in Buddhism and was not far behind, so he welcomed Kumo Roshi into the capital Chang'an (then renamed Chang'an) as a national teacher, and then in his hometown of Gansu Tianshui, he searched for the famous scenic spot of Maijishan, and according to the Buddhist scriptures translated by Kumarosh, the Maijishan Grottoes were built on a large scale for the first time.
At the beginning of construction, the sculptures in the grotto were in the Central Asian Gandhara style, but still had their own Chinese characteristics. For example, on the basis of the original partial robe, a corner of the right shoulder is added to form a semi-partial favoritism with Chinese characteristics, which not only takes care of the Buddhist traditions of the western regions of India, but also takes care of Chinese customs, reflecting a beginning of the sinification of Buddhism. Subsequently, the style of the cave Buddha statue gradually changed from tight and narrow to loose, until the double collar of the robe was drooped, and the face gradually changed to the beautiful bone clear image of the Chinese Coats image, reflecting the process of further sinicization of Buddhism. In terms of cave shape, the architectural domes popular in the West were absorbed in the caves of the Later Qin and Sui Dynasties.
In addition, the semi-partial style of the Maijishan Grottoes spread westward to Xinjiang. The Maijishan Grottoes were built by successive royal rulers in the form of caves, which spread eastward to grottoes such as Yungang and Longmen.
The most distinctive work of art in the Maijishan Grottoes is the 20 "thin flesh sculpture" flying murals in Cave 4 (Scattered Flower Building). Xia Langyun introduced that this cave is the "Seven Buddha Shrines" created by the Northern Zhou Dynasty, li Yunxin, the governor of the capital, and above each niche is painted a flying mural of about six or seven square meters, which contains a "thin flesh sculpture" flying sky. "Thin flesh sculpture" Feitian is different: the body covering parts such as hair crowns, streamers, and dresses are flat painting forms, and the bare parts of the body such as face, arms, hands, and feet are floating plastic, and the three-dimensional image of the floating plastic makes the flying sky feel like it comes out of the wall. The exquisite degree of this "combination of painting and plastic" technique is unique in the domestic grotto world, which is the result of the influence of the "convex and concave" painting technique in the western region, and is also the product of the cultural exchange and integration of China and the West on the ancient Silk Road.
Today, the cultural imprint of the ancient silk exchange route still exists in the grotto. For example, the Central Asians in Cave 5 look like the Heavenly King, and the Central Asians in Cave 2 wear pointed hats and ride lions, are all witnesses to the cultural exchange between China and the West.
The Heavenly King of the Asian Face in Cave 5 Courtesy of Sharon Cloud
On 22 June 2014, at the 38th session of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee in Doha, Qatar, the Maijishan Grottoes were inscribed on the World Heritage List as a site in the "Silk Road: Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor Road Network" jointly applied for by China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Once into a lifetime of protection
There must always be someone to guard, and there must always be someone to continue.
This year marks the 35th year that Xia Langyun has walked into the Maijishan Grottoes. He graduated from the Department of Archaeology of Peking University, his family is in Anhui, he dreams of being a painter, and he has never quit since the day he walked into the Maijishan Grottoes.
At that time, the Maijishan Grottoes were almost blank in the picture of the continued innovation of archaeological research. Xia Langyun was still the fledgling graduate Xia Yang. He accidentally received the white paper in his soul from the Maijishan Grottoes, and under the illumination of the northwest sun, in the moisture of the forest paths, in the white clouds between the Maiji Mountains, Xia Yang changed his name to Xia Langyun and began to color his life and the Maijishan Grottoes.
From the intern to the deputy director of the data room, to the director and researcher of the archaeological research office, from enthusiasm, disappointment, escape, and then to return to enthusiasm, Xia Langyun spent more than ten years. He said: "Archaeology is a very rigorous thing, unlike in the imagination, and can only be slowly adapted to it." As more and more people came to The Archaeology of MaiJishan, they pulled me up as soon as they came, forcing me to talk to them and prompting me to think again. ”
Constantly find mistakes, keep correcting, keep finding. From 1999 to 2003, during the collection of archival data, Xia Langyun published a series of new views on the topic of archaeological discontinuities in the early caves of the Maijishan Grottoes. Among them, the most important are four revelations, namely: "The Revelation of The First Cave of Bingling Temple to the Broken Generation of the Great Buddha on the Cliff of Maiji Mountain", "The Revelation of the Longmen "Xuanwu Chopping Mountain" on the Location of The "Yao Xing Chisel Mountain" of Mai Ji", "The Revelation of Mai Ji on the Problem of The Early Caves of Mogao", and "The Revelation of the "Yao Qin Five Niches" of Mai Ji to the "Five Caves of Tan Yao" in Yungang", and thus recognized the important position of the Mai Ji Shan Grottoes in the history of the founding of Chinese Buddhist grottoes.
Exquisite Buddha statues in the Maijishan Grottoes in Tianshui
Through archaeological research, Xia Langyun found that the early burning cultural layer of Caves such as Cave 90, Cave 165, Cave 74, Cave 78, cave 51 of Maijishan was located below the Cultural Layer of the Northern Wei Restoration, which can be roughly judged that the cave was built before the destruction of Emperor Taiwu of northern Wei; before the Sui and Tang earthquakes, the west cliff where the early caves were located should be the center of the ancient cliff face, in line with the "royal style" of the noble center. In addition, some peripheral evidence that the Maijishan Grottoes belong to the Chang'an Buddhist culture also provides a basis for the Maijishan to be a royal grotto. These discoveries and the Song Dynasty Moya inscription of the Maijishan Grottoes are mutually corroborated, which can roughly determine that Maijishan was first repaired by the Yao Qin (Later Qin) royal family, thus answering the controversy in the academic circles on the earliest excavation year of the Maijishan Grottoes.
After the formation of the concept of "the first ancestor of the royal grotto", Xia Langyun made new progress in the archaeology of Maijishan: the earliest "inscription" about Ephraim was discovered. Through this, it was determined that Cave 133, known as the "Ten Thousand Buddha Caves", was the tomb chamber of Empress Yi Fushi of the Western Wei Dynasty; at the same time, the 43rd Cave, which was originally believed to be the tomb of Yi Fushi, was indirectly determined, which was the "Shenni Relic Cave" excavated by Emperor Wen of Sui; the 4th Cave (Sanhualou) was a Royal Cave of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, and found that its imitation wood architectural structure "Heavy Frieze", which was the pioneer of the popular frieze structure in the Tang Dynasty; the 5rd Cave was the royal cave of the Sui Dynasty, and the Dugu Empress and her daughter Yang Lihua were the main providers. Therefore, the royal caves in the Maijishan Grottoes were recognized by the four dynasties of Later Qin, Western Wei, Northern Zhou, and Sui.
The Maijishan Grottoes are a witness to history, a source of art, the ancestor of the Chinese Buddhist royal grottoes, the representative of the "Chang'an model" grottoes, and the royal grottoes with the largest number of dynasties (four dynasties) in China. In the process of research, Xia Langyun constantly showed the greatness and value of the Maijishan Grottoes to the world with literature, and he often used poetry and calligraphy to express his infinite love for the Maijishan Grottoes.
In 2010, the book "Archaeological Studies on the Maijishan Grottoes" written by Xia Langyun was published, and he wrote in the afterword of the book: "More than 20 years later, as an ordinary research librarian of the Maijishan Grotto Art Research Institute, in front of the ancient Maijishan, I am still a pious primary school student. The Maijishan Grottoes, like an ancient book that has been sealed for many years, are waiting for us to read. (Source: Xiong Chenghui, Silk Road Civilization magazine)