In December 2021, Xinhua News Agency's "Xinhua Viewpoint" reported that a complete mural of Northern Liang Feitian was found in the Tiantishan Grottoes in Gansu Province. For a time, it attracted widespread attention in the field of cave temple archaeology. The discovery of the Northern Liang Feitian Mural of the Tiantishan Grottoes has provided new archaeological materials for early Chinese cave art, and also added a shining touch to the rich historical heritage of "Liangzhou", the capital of Hexi. To this end, China Minzu Daily "Dao Zhonghua" conducted an exclusive interview with Cai Jianhong, director of the Cultural Relics Research Office of the Tiantishan Grotto Protection Research Institute in Wuwei City, to unveil the history of more than 1,600 years.
First acquaintance with Hexi metropolis "Liangzhou"
▲Map of the jurisdiction of Liangzhou in the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty. (Image source: Liangzhou Cultural and Sports Radio and Television Tourism Public Account)
Liangzhou, the ancient name of Wuwei City, Gansu Province, enjoys the reputation of "the world's stronghold, the national domain" and "the five Liang Jinghua, the capital of Hexi". As early as four or five thousand years ago, there were ethnic groups from the north of the continent living here; In the spring of the second year of the Western Han Dynasty (121 BC), Huo Qubing twice conquered the Xiongnu in the west, controlled the entire Hexi corridor, and set up four counties in Hexi; In the fifth year of Emperor Wu of Han's reign (106 BC), he "first established the Thirteen Prefectures of the Assassination History Department", and established the Liangzhou Spur History Department in the northwest, with Guzang County of Wuwei County (present-day Liangzhou District, Wuwei City, Gansu Province) as its administrative office; During the Sixteen Kingdoms period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the former Liang, the Later Liang, the Southern Liang, and the Northern Liang, and the Great Liang in the early Tang Dynasty all built their capitals here, and later they were ruled by counties, prefectures, and prefectures. At the time of the Han and Tang dynasties, Liangzhou was the largest ancient city in northwest China after Chang'an.
The opening and unimpeded opening of the Silk Road has created opportunities for the eastward transmission of Buddhist culture. By the Sixteen Kingdoms period, Liangzhou's Sanskrit scriptures, Hu scriptures, copieds, and translations were stored in a staggering number, and the Southern Dynasty monk's "Collection of the Three Collections of Tripitaka" recorded that the total number of Buddhist scriptures translated in Liangzhou alone was 145. A large number of senior monks from South Asia, Central Asia and the Western Regions have spread the Dharma here, and the "Legend of the High Monks" of the Southern Dynasties records that there were 11 famous monks from Liangzhou during the Wei and Jin dynasties, and more than 20 Western monks who once lived in Liangzhou, and these monks had a prominent position and made significant contributions in the history of Buddhism at that time. As a result, Liangzhou became a new cultural highland during the Wei and Jin dynasties, promoted the evolution and development of Buddhism, and also became a distribution center for Han translation and propagation. At the same time, "cave temples" emerged and spread as a new Buddhist cultural product in the Hexi corridor.
The "Liangzhou Grottoes" are hidden in Liangzhou
According to many historical documents such as "Spring and Autumn of the Sixteen Kingdoms" and "The Legend of the High Monk", during the period of Mengxun in Northern Liangzhou, Buddhist activities were frequent in Liangzhou, and Mengxun of Liangzhou excavated a large-scale grotto, installed statues, and "made six stone statues for his mother". However, in the available documentary materials, no relevant accounts of the "Liangzhou Grottoes" have been found since the Tang Dynasty. So, does the "Liangzhou Grotto" excavated by Mengxun, the king of Northern Liang, still exist? Where exactly is this grotto?
▲Panorama photo of Tiantishan Grottoes in the 50s of the 20th century. (Photo by Dunhuang Academy)
In the first half of the 20th century, the discussion and exploration of the "Liangzhou Grottoes" never stopped, especially the specific location, development continuation, loss or loss, existing relics and many other aspects of the "Liangzhou Grottoes" were widely demonstrated, and many different conclusions were also drawn.
In 1958, the Gansu Provincial People's Government decided to build the Huangyang River Reservoir under the Wuwei Tianti Mountain Grottoes. From November 1959 to April 1960, the former Dunhuang Institute of Cultural Relics (now the Dunhuang Academy) and the Gansu Provincial Museum set up a Wuwei Tiantishan Grottoes Relocation Survey Team, which carried out a detailed investigation and cleaning and excavation of the Tiantishan Grottoes for half a year, and finally cleaned up and excavated 5 Beiliang Grottoes, while stripping a certain number of Beiliang murals in Caves 1 and 4. Based on this, combined with historical materials, it is fully confirmed that the Wuwei Tiantishan Grottoes are indeed "Liangzhou Grottoes", and the grottoes hewn by Mengxun, the king of Northern Liang, and the grottoes made for the mother Zhangliu Stone Statue may still exist.
In December 1959, some members of the Tiantishan Grottoes Survey and Relocation Task Force and Captain Chang Shuhong (2nd row, 4th from left) took a group photo in front of Cave 13.
The Northern Liang murals discovered by the Tiantishan Grottoes survey and relocation team during the relocation work from 1959 to 1960 are now in the Gansu Provincial Museum.
In the process of relocating cultural relics, the team excavated a buried stone stele under the guidance of local elders, namely "Rebuilding the Stele of Guangshan Temple in Liangzhou" (according to the "Wuwei County Record", Guangshan Temple is the Great Buddha Temple in front of the Tiantishan Grottoes). According to the inscription: "One hundred and thirty miles southeast of the county, the place name is Huangyang River, there are ancient temple ruins, there are stone Buddha statues, nine zhang high, four bodhisattvas, two Vajra, and six of the twenty shrines of the Buddhas." The location of the ancient temple site recorded in the inscription coincides with the location of the cave and temple built in the Depression Mongxun period described in the Northern Wei Cui Hong's "Spring and Autumn of the Sixteen Kingdoms" (the city of Liangzhou is about 60 kilometers away from the Tiantishan Grottoes).
Based on the content of the cultural relics and inscriptions of the Northern Liang Grottoes, it is confirmed that the Tiantishan Grottoes are the "Liangzhou Grottoes" created by Mengxun, the king of Northern Liang, recorded in historical documents, which confirms the correctness of the historical documents of the "Liangzhou Grottoes", and also provides real and reliable physical evidence for the historical stage of the Tiantishan Grottoes after the Tang Dynasty.
▲ In the thirteenth year of the Ming Orthodoxy, the "Inscription of Rebuilding the Guangshan Temple in Liangzhou" (unearthed in the Tiantishan Grottoes in 1959) was expanded.
The "Liangzhou Model" originated from Liangzhou
Tiantishan Grottoes were built in the Mengxun period (412-439) of Northern Liangqu, more than 1600 years ago, and are the first royal grottoes directly excavated by the king of a country recorded in the annals of history on the mainland, and have an extremely important historical position in the history of the development of cave temples on the mainland. It is worth mentioning that during the excavation of the Tiantishan Grottoes, a group of skilled craftsmen, sculptors and painters who excavated the grottoes such as Tanyao were trained, and it was also an important technical force for the later excavation of the Yungang Grottoes and Longmen Grottoes, and Tanyao was also revered as the Buddhist leader of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
▲Location map of the five caves of Beiliang in Tianti Mountain (taken in 2015).
After the large-scale excavation of the Tiantishan Grottoes from Northern Liang, they were built successively from the Northern Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and were still rebuilt from Western Xia to the Ming and Qing Dynasties. According to the "Rebuilding Liangzhou Guangshan Temple Inscription" in the thirteenth year of the Ming Orthodoxy, it is recorded that there are still 26 caves in the Ming Dynasty, and there are temples and pavilions in front of the big Buddha cave, and a tower is built on the top of the cave, which is spectacular and magnificent. After a century of vicissitudes, especially the 1927 earthquake, most of the temple buildings and grottoes in front of the cave were destroyed. By the early days of liberation, only 18 cave ruins remained, but it covered almost all cave types of cave temples, the main cave types include central tower pillar cave, large elephant cave, Buddha hall cave, Buddha altar cave, monastic cave, small Zen cave, etc. Caves 1, 4, 15, 17 and 18 of the Tiantishan Grottoes are the earlier central pillar caves, which originated from the Indian Zhiti caves and were more popular during the Sixteen Kingdoms and Northern Dynasties.
Cave 13 of Tiantishan Grottoes. (Image source: Xinhua News Agency)
Status of preservation of the central tower pillar of Cave 1 of Tiantishan Grottoes (representative cave shape of the "Liangzhou Model") (photographed in 2020).
In 1986, Mr. Su Bai, the pioneer of Chinese Buddhist archaeology and a famous archaeologist, published the article "Liangzhou Grotto Remains and the "Liangzhou Model" in the Journal of Archaeology based on relevant historical materials and physical remains, which pioneered the famous "Liangzhou Model" in the history of the construction of cave temples in the mainland. Mr. Su Bai pointed out that the "Liangzhou model" is the first Buddhist cave construction model to appear in the northern region east of Xinjiang on the mainland, and it is also the most primitive and basic model for the construction of Buddha statues in this region.
Tiantishan Grottoes is an outstanding representative of early cave art in mainland China, and is the origin of the "Liangzhou Model" in the history of cave temple construction in mainland China, which is of great significance for the study of mainland Buddhist cave architecture, artistic origin and development context. The Tiantishan Grottoes had an important influence on the Bingling Temple Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes and Longmen Grottoes during the eastward spread of Buddhism, and also influenced the construction of the grottoes in the Hexi region and Gaochang area to the west. Therefore, the Tiantishan Grottoes have an important historical position in the history of the spread of Buddhism in early China, and provide a precious yardstick for the study of early Buddhist grottoes and Buddhist architectural art in northern China.
In 1994, Mr. Su Bai took a group photo with his entourage when he visited the Wuwei Tianti Mountain Grottoes.
"Northern Liang Feitian" reproduces Liangzhou
In order to rescue and protect the historical and cultural heritage of the Tiantishan Grottoes, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the People's Government of Gansu Province approved and agreed to restore the Tiantishan Grottoes "in situ". In January 2006, most of the relocated cultural relics of the Tiantishan Grottoes stored in the Gansu Provincial Museum in 1960 were returned to the Tiantishan Grottoes. In 2014, the Dunhuang Academy launched the "Tiantishan Grottoes Relocation Mural Restoration Project", which took 8 years to complete the restoration of the relocated cultural relics of the Tiantishan Grottoes, with a total of more than 300 square meters of murals and more than 70 statues.
▲In 2017, Mr. Fan Zaixuan, a researcher of the Dunhuang Academy, restored the damaged Buddha's head in Cave 8 of the Tiantishan Grottoes.
▲Tiantishan Grotto mural restorers spliced and restored a large area of damaged and cut murals in Cave 2.
In the process of restoring the painted sculpture of this mural, a small number of early heavy murals were restored, once again uncovering the mystery of the early murals of Tiantishan Grottoes. One of the most representative paintings is the arc-shaped Northern Liang mural on the back of the central pillar of Cave 4, along the top of the first level tower pillar (reported by Xinhua News Agency above), with an area of about 0.6 square meters. In this mural, from bottom to top, three figures appear: the bottom one is mutilated, and only the eyes to the top of the head remain; The middle one is the image of a bodhisattva offering in the form of a kneeling hu; The upper part is a flying image. The painting style of the entire mural is exactly the same as the Northern Liang mural found in this cave in 1960, and the three figures adopt the "concave and convex painting method", and their eyebrow bones and upper eyelids are dyed with white dots, thus forming a clear three-dimensional effect. In terms of the drawing technique of the murals, whether it is the color and smudging of the face and skin of the characters, or the iron line drawing to express the contours of the body and the folds of clothing, they have reached a very high level of craftsmanship.
In 2019, during the restoration of the relocation mural of Tiantishan Grottoes, the Northern Liang mural of Cave 4 was uncovered and restored, with a complete image of the sky in the whole picture and the upper part.
The flying sky image in this mural is the most complete Northern Liang flying sky mural found and restored in the Tiantishan Grottoes. This flying body is basically the same as the vertical bottle Bodhisattva uncovered in Cave 4 in 1960, the difference is that the bodhisattva is more elegant and calm and slightly slender and weak, while this flying body gives people a bulky and rough feeling. Feitian has its head inward and feet outward, although the waist is slightly bent downward, but it is completely like a bodhisattva lying horizontally on the upper part of the outer part of the niche, plus a slightly clumsy body, there is no feeling of light flying. Compared with the beautiful image of other grottoes that flutters lightly and flutters in the air, it is even more different. The whole flying sky, whether it is online drawing, coloring, smudging, shape, expression, mood, etc., is very proficient, giving people a clumsy feeling, reproducing the unique characteristics of early Buddhist mural art.
In October 2020, the "Tianti Shenyun Liangzhou Buddha Light - Tiantishan Grottoes Special Exhibition" with the relocation murals and colored sculptures of Tiantishan Grottoes as the main body was launched at Wuwei City Museum. This special exhibition perfectly reproduces the thousand-year transformation of the Tiantishan Grottoes, explains the important position of the "Liangzhou Model" in the history of the development of Chinese cave temples, and highlights the significance of the "origin" of the Tiantishan Grottoes in the history of Chinese cave art. At the same time, it shows the past, present and future of Tiantishan Grottoes from different aspects such as history, geography, art, culture and science and technology, and presents the accumulation and precipitation of thousands of years of Buddhist art in Liangzhou.
Wuwei City Museum "Tianti Shenyun Liangzhou Buddha Light - Tiantishan Grottoes Special Exhibition".
Heavy wall painting of the central pillar of Cave 4 of Tiantishan Grottoes. The upper layer is the Yuan Dynasty Waki Bodhisattva (above), and the lower layer is the Northern Liangwaki Bodhisattva (below).
May 18, 2021 is "International Museum Day", hosted by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the Beijing Municipal People's Government, and organized by the Capital Museum, China National Silk Museum and China Cultural Relics Protection Technology Association, two restoration murals of Tiantishan Grottoes made a stunning appearance at the Capital Museum, which was the first time that the restoration murals of Tiantishan Grottoes "went out" and appeared on the "big stage".
In September 2017, Mr. Yu Qiuyu, a well-known cultural scholar, spoke highly of the "Liangzhou Culture Forum": "Liangzhou culture is an important key to Chinese culture". Tiantishan Grottoes is an important support point for thousands of years of Liangzhou culture, and is also an important part of the diverse and integrated culture of the Chinese nation, with important value in history, art, science, society and culture.
▲On September 16, 2017, Mr. Yu Qiuyu, a famous cultural scholar, delivered a keynote speech at the "Liangzhou Cultural Forum". (Image source: Liangzhou Cultural Research Institute)
Resurrect the thousand-year-old time of Liangzhou Grottoes and reproduce the glorious chapter of grotto art. The protection and restoration of cultural relics and monuments of Tiantishan Grottoes is the result of generations of cultural relics workers who are not afraid of hardship and hard work. In the new era, we are all guardians and inheritors of cultural heritage, watching over Chinese culture and passing on the torch of Chinese civilization from generation to generation.
▲Panorama of Wuwei Tianti Mountain Grottoes.