Looking at Dunhuang and Mogao Grottoes from a spatial perspective, it must play a role in activating the body and eyes.
Cave 45 of Mogao Caves, north side of the west niche, Left Banner Attendant Bodhisattva Sheng Tang (Photo by Wu Jian/Photo courtesy of Dunhuang Research Institute)
Dictation | Wu Hong
Finish | Youfan
Now to tell the story of Dunhuang and Mogao Grottoes, it is basically based on the Historical Dynasties of China and constructs the linear history of the Mogao Grottoes. From the earliest sixteenth century to the late Tang Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, it is a temporal, linear clue. But is there another way?
Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes are so rich, perhaps you can change the perspective, such as from the perspective of art history. Art history often considers the problems of vision and space, can we use "space" as an entry point and combine the time process to tell the story of Mogao Grottoes?
Northern Wilderness Cave 96 (Photo by Bo Xihe)
This way, it is closer to the specific experience of those who visit the grotto.
People in history visit the Mogao Grottoes, always starting from the actual experience of space, from seeing the Mogao Grottoes from a long distance, to getting closer to seeing the cliff face of the Mogao Grottoes, and then walking into the caves to see. In fact, people today are repeating this experience. What are the tools for spatial perception? Not books, but first the body, the movement of the body, and then the eyes.
From a spatial point of view of the Mogao Caves, we must activate the role of the body and the eyes.
Follow the pilgrims on a journey "imagined"
How to tell the story of Mogao Grottoes from "space"?
First of all, we followed the footsteps of the pilgrims of the past, walking from Dunhuang City to the Mogao Grottoes on Mingsha Mountain outside the city, passing through various temples and ancestral halls, crossing the cemetery in the desert, and finally arriving at this shaded Buddhist holy place. It is an "imaginary" journey, which means the historical Mogao Grottoes, belonging to a larger cultural and natural space, and only in this space can its meaning be truly revealed.
Mogao Caves Nine-Story Tower (Photo by Huang Yu)
Arriving at the Mogao Caves, people saw a huge cliff face. Because we followed the pilgrims of the past to see the Mogao Grottoes, we need to imagine: were the ancients seeing the scattered caves, or the majestic Mogao Grottoes? Have the two great statues in the Mogao Caves (Peking University Statue and South Statue) been established? These questions all make us imagine the historical Mogao Grottoes, transform today's Mogao Grottoes as a whole into specific perceptions on the historical level, and use the eyes of pilgrims to appreciate the evolution of the cliff surface of Mogao Grottoes.
We then walk into the cave and experience this complex of sculptures, paintings and architecture inside the cave. The flow of space takes us as we walk through the cave, either in circles around the central pillar or stop at the statue of the Lord Buddha. It is also at this moment that our physical movements are transformed into visual movements, eye movements, and we begin to look at self-contained murals and sculptures in the caves, figuring out how they relate to architecture.
Cave 130 of Mogao Caves Yongdao South Wall Statue of Du Du Lady (Du Du Lady and Female Dependents Dressed) Duan Wenjie Linyi Sheng Tang (Wu Jian photo / Dunhuang Research Institute Photo)
Further, we bring the body very close, close to the picture, because there is also space in the picture, called "picture space", there is perspective, there are all kinds of spaces, so when we put the body close together, our eyes cross, into the painting space, forgetting the existence of stone walls and caverns. This is a rough journey to see the Mogao Grottoes, from very vast to very close.
Why were the earliest caves built?
Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes is a complex of sculptures, paintings and architecture, and the flow of space takes us through the caves. But it is important to think back to the experience of the ancients, not just our own.
First of all, what the ancients saw was certainly not what it is now, because the archway in front of the Mogao Caves was only moved in 1959, and the concrete cliff face was also built in the 1950s and 1960s. So, this makes us think: what did the mogao grottoes look like in history? The answer is that there has not been a single Dunhuang in history, nor a single Mogao Grottoes, only countless ever-changing Mogao Grottoes.
In 1948, the Dunhuang Art Research Institute repaired the cliff face of the Mogao Caves
People's footprints towards the Mogao Grottoes always overlapped and accumulated, gradually stepping out of the road to Mingsha Mountain, and the number of caves on the cliff surface also increased, from one to two to three, to hundreds. So first find the beginning of the Mogao Caves.
Regarding the beginning of the Mogao Grottoes, scholars generally set it as 366 AD. That year, the Mogao Grottoes belonged to the local former Liang regime, and it is said that there was a monk named Lezun who wanted to find a very quiet place to practice, so when he came to this place, on the Mingsha Mountain on the banks of the Tangquan River (also known as the Daquan River), he suddenly saw "suddenly there was a golden light, like a thousand Buddhas", which was a very auspicious and magical moment. So he "chiseled rocks" on the mountain and built the first grotto of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes. This is based on documentation.
After he built the cave, another Zen master named Fa Liang traveled from the east to the clouds and built his own zen room next to the Lezu Cave. Now the Zen caves of Lejia and Farang can no longer be found, and the earliest caves that exist in mogao caves today are three, namely cave 268, cave 272, and cave 275, often referred to as the "three caves of Northern Liang". However, there are some controversies about their age, for example, the late archaeologist Professor Su Bai believes that it may belong to the Northern Wei Dynasty, and I call it the "Original Cave Group", which is the earliest surviving cave group in Dunhuang.
Mogao Caves Cave 323 North Wall Zhang Qian's Mission to the Western Regions (Photo courtesy of Dunhuang Research Institute produced by dunhuang research institute for the digitization of cultural relics)
What are the characteristics of the early Mogao Caves? First of all, it should be noted that these three caves were designed, built and used as a complex, and its purpose is to practice meditation, that is, where the monks sit and meditate. This feature explains the location chosen for this group of caves. Its position is in the middle of the cliff wall 13 meters above the ground, that is, the "overhead chisel hole" just mentioned in the literature, which is chiseled on the rock wall. This location must have brought great inconvenience to construction and viewing, because excavating and painting Buddha statues on the cliff wall must be much more difficult than flat operation, and every time you have to climb a high ladder and fish in. However, there must have been a reason for the special site selection, no doubt out of consideration for the religious function of the cave.
Mogao Cave 23 Cave West of the North Wall Farming in the Rain of The Transformation of The Fahua Dynasty Sheng Tang (Photo by Sun Zhijun / Photo courtesy of Dunhuang Research Institute)
What are the purposes of these caves? It is meditation, which requires contemplation and dedication to the Buddha. Imagine the sight and mentality of a zen monk sitting in a cave. What did he see? The Great Spring River under the cliff isolates the red dust world on the other side, and the ashram above the cliff is transformed into the Buddha's heavenly palace.
The interior spaces of these three caves also serve this purpose. Cave 268 at the southern end is the smallest and is used directly for meditation. It is a longitudinal rectangular cave that extends inward along the doorway and stops at the Buddha statue in the small niches on the west wall. So the first feeling of the pilgrim entering is very cramped, and the person who built the cave must have designed the space with a single human body reference factor, because only one adult can turn around in it. This makes us realize that the purpose of the entire space in the cave is to promote the spiritual expansion of introversion by limiting the user's physical movement and communication with each other to the greatest extent, that is, "Zen" and "Meditation". You don't need to move, you need to let your spirit develop and imagine.
Cave 268
Cave 272 is also quite cramped, with a ground area of only about 5 square meters, but if you come directly from Cave 268, there will be an unexpected feeling of sudden openness. Because the cave shape becomes almost square, there is also a rising bucket roof, creating a more open feeling. The images and sculptures inside the cave are filled with walls and roofs, and there is a Shrine on the west wall, the main wall, which is a solemn Maitreya Buddha, and there are 40 bodhisattvas dancing with joy on both sides, who are listening to the Buddha come to tell the Sutras, very happy. On the side wall is a very quiet Thousand Buddhas, and on the top is the Heavenly Palace Trick Music, so different walls and images form an orderly, proportional and coordinated image program.
Cave 272
Maitreya Buddha, the main figure located in the niche, seems to be in an illusory space, with a fourfold body light and a head light, and a thousand Buddhas, heavenly beings, and flames in the head light. In the impression of Zen monks in the Middle Ages, these images of a thousand Buddhas in the backlight and headlight were constantly incarnated from the Buddha. So the shrine at the focal point of the grotto is imagined as a place where religious miracles are concentrated. Therefore, when we look at these caves, we must imagine the mind of the meditating monk at that time, the fantasy vision or the experience of imagination and appearance that he may have, and realize an imagination of "leisurely traveling in the Pure Land and meeting with the Buddha" when participating in meditation.
This kind of imagination of "wandering in the Pure Land and always meeting with the Buddha" is strongly reflected in the next third cave, Cave 275. This is the largest of the three caves, from Cave 268 to Cave 272 to Cave 275, and their spatial scale increases almost exponentially, but the faster and faster increase is the scale of the Buddha statue. The Buddha statue in Cave 275 reaches 3.34 meters, almost three times the size of the Buddha statue in Cave 272.
The statue of The Buddha gradually enlarged
Therefore, it can be considered that these two are simultaneous changes: one is an enlarged space, allowing cave builders to display larger and larger Buddha statues; the other is an enlarged Buddha statue, which also promotes the expansion of space. A deeper change is the relationship between the Buddha statue and the worshippers. At The foot of Cave 268, Maitreya, sat on the west wall, away from the ground; by Cave 272, the position of the Buddha statue was greatly reduced, and although it was still some distance from the ground, it still sat in the niche; by Cave 275, Maitreya Buddha sat directly on the pedestal built on the ground, with a lotus flower supporting his feet, and the shrine disappeared. Therefore, the Buddha statue seems to come out of the wall and live in the same room with the worshippers, whether sitting or standing, in a space. From another point of view, the worshipper can also imagine that he has finally entered the field of the Buddha.
From a spatial point of view, looking at these caves from the outside to the inside, we can better understand the story inside the caves.
How did the Mogao Caves evolve?
Moving down, we reached the next stage of development of the Mogao Grottoes: starting from the original cave group, it stretched in the middle of the cliff to the north and south, and built many caves arranged horizontally. These new caves show a completely new spatial pattern, showing that cave builders do not fully follow tradition. This new model is called "central tower pillar cave" or "central pillar cave" by archaeologists and art historians, and I think the name "tower temple cave" is more suitable for revealing its connotation. The reason is that the prototype of this cave is not only a tower, but also a temple. The temple contains a pagoda, as well as the surrounding space, symbolizing the Buddha Hall. In this space, it is possible to worship, and the cloister around the tower is connected to guide the faithful to perform rituals around the tower. Buddhist texts repeatedly teach that circumventing a stupa can accumulate a lot of merit, allowing Buddhists to approach the Buddha and open up Buddha-nature in the hearts of worshippers. This style of cave began in the Northern Wei Dynasty and continued until the early Tang Dynasty.
By the end of the 7th century, Dunhuang had more than 200 caves. Although from the Northern Dynasty to the early Tang Dynasty, the expansion of the Mogao Caves basically followed a continuous set of internal mechanisms: the expansion of the cave group was formed by horizontal extension, and it was basically concentrated in the middle of the cliff, neither touching the ground nor close to the cliff ridge, and being horizontally connected by a boardwalk, and related to the ground or other caves through stairs. This was the basic construction procedure of the first three hundred years or so.
Breaking this construction mechanism was Cave 96, built at the end of the 7th century and known to the Dunhuang people of the Tang Dynasty as the Great Statue of Peking University. Scholars believe that the excavation of this cave is directly related to Wu Zetian's political attempts. Because Wu Zetian wanted to be emperor, he did a lot of propaganda for this, such as making Buddhist scriptures and repairing Buddhist temples, and this cave was built at that time. It introduced a form that had never appeared in the Mogao Caves: the Great Elephant Caves. From the ground to the cliff ridge, a 35.5-meter-high seated statue of Maitreya Buddha was built, and around this statue, a four-story wooden building of more than 40 meters high was built against the cliff. So from the outside, like a majestic pavilion, like a monument, its political function does have a monumental nature. The construction of this statue has brought very important changes to the overall cave group of Mogao Caves. First of all, as a huge landmark building, it provides a visual center for the cliff face of Mogao Grottoes, and also introduces the concept of center and hierarchy for Mogao Grottoes. The closer you get to the cave, the closer you get to the center, and are therefore sought after by the most powerful rulers and monks.
Peking University Statue Cave 96 (Photo by Bo Xihe)
This trend became more pronounced in the mid-9th century during the rebel period. Many of the leaders of the rebel army, that is, the actual rulers and political leaders of Dunhuang, built their merit caves around the North and South Great Statue Caves. In the 9th and 10th centuries, these large caves were not built in the middle and upper layers, and many were built on the bottom floor of the cliff surface of the Mogao Caves, which was very close to human activities, because it was easy to enter the bottom floor of the caves, so large-scale Buddhist activities were often held in these halls and caves. Therefore, from the structure to the location to the activities, it has created a new image for the Mogao Grottoes.
Nanda Statue Cave 130 has the second largest Buddha in Mogao Cave (Photo by Wu Jian/Photo courtesy of Dunhuang Research Institute)
By the time of the Cao clan's return to the rebel army in the 10th century, another very big change had taken place in the cliff face of the Mogao Caves. In 1951, archaeologists Su Bai, Chen Mingda and other gentlemen formed a survey team to conduct a careful investigation of the Mogao Grottoes, and they found the remaining open-air murals on the cliff surface of the Mogao Grottoes, which spread from south to north for half a mile. Although because of the long-term exposure, the large murals are now almost invisible, but from the trace investigation at that time, the original murals are full of colors, with Buddha Halls, Auspicious Clouds, and Heavenly People, transforming the entire cliffs of the Mogao Grottoes into a Pure Land of Buddha. This is also the first time that the Mogao Caves have been repaired and remodeled as a whole. The reformers were the rulers of the Cao rebel army, who combined political power and clerical power, established special institutions, set up special officials, and centrally managed the excavation and repair of the grottoes. They also regarded the comprehensive modification of the Mogao Caves as their own merit.
Mogao Caves Cave 158 West Wall Buddha Altar Tang Dynasty Shakya Nirvana Statue Part (Wu Jian photo / Dunhuang Research Institute photo)
However, the ambitions and efforts of the upper class are only part of the construction of the Mogao Caves. The development of the Mogao Caves includes three other processes from beginning to end: the first is the excavation of small and medium-sized niches from families or Buddhist organizations, which have never stopped, and these small niches have gradually filled all the available places on the cave surface and are also changing the appearance of the entire cave type; the second is the reconstruction and renovation of the old caves, such as the old family caves, the abandoned grottoes, when renovating, often widen the front room and the façade to make the appearance new; the third is a variety of unplanned natural damage, including several major collapses in history. and the collapse caused by the artificial construction of new caves. This process continues even today, and the preservation and tourism of the grottoes, which inevitably causes a huge change in the overall appearance of the grotto.
As researchers of art history, our responsibility is always to find our place between this change and protection, both to protect and to explore the historical situation that has disappeared. Reconstructing historical experience from the "space" and imagining how people in history constructed, built, and observed the Mogao Caves are also part of this effort.