We drove to Datong, Shanxi this time, the purpose is to visit the Yungang Grottoes, not much to say, please follow me into the scenic spot, first of all we saw the statue of this thin monk, this is the monk of Tan Yao, the word Tan Yao is pronounced "tán, yào", why is there a sculpture of this monk as soon as you come in? Because the Yungang Grottoes were first excavated by him, the most exquisite and famous in the whole grotto, that is, the "Tan Yao Five Grottoes" he excavated, it can be said that "there is a Tan Yao, there is a Yungang Grottoes"...
We stepped through the scenic gate, and the trail was flanked by buddhist-style stone pillars carved with statues of bodhisattvas. At first glance, you know that these are modern newly built scenic spots, but all of this also creates an antique charm, which can be regarded as a time and space bridge laid for tourists who are eager to see the Yungang Grottoes, so that your mind transitions from modernity to before 1600, so we also enjoy this section of the trail, and will slowly smell the historical fragrance of the grottoes...
This trip to the Yungang Grottoes is of great significance to me, because of the four major grottoes in China, I have had the privilege of visiting the Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, and the Maijishan Grottoes in Tianshui, Gansu, and this time is a complete grotto trip. In China, the early royal construction of large religious sites, of course, the grotto temple, and in the history of the development of grottoes in our country, the earliest grottoes excavated by the royal presidency is the Yungang Grottoes, so the Yungang Grottoes are the earliest large-scale royal grottoes in China, different from the other three grottoes...
In fact, before coming here, I still habitually check the relevant information, Yungang Grottoes is the largest surviving grotto group in China, but it is also the shortest excavation cycle of the four major grottoes in China, with less than 100 years. Yungang Grottoes, the largest as high as 17 meters, the smallest only 2 centimeters of more than 51,000 statues scattered in hundreds of caves, they are arranged in order on the sedimentary rock of the Yinshan Mountains 16 kilometers west of Datong, stretching 1 kilometer from east to west, although their history is short, but it is the most mysterious and exquisite one of the four major grottoes in China...
We have finally seen the grotto, so we will start from the first picture of this article, the monk of Tan Yao. After Emperor Taiwu unified the country, under the influence of his important minister Cui Hao, he began to believe in Taoism and called himself Taiping Zhenjun, and then Emperor Taiwu began a campaign to exterminate Buddhism that lasted for 6 years, until Emperor Taiwu was killed by eunuchs. In 452 AD, emperor Tuoba Li succeeded to the throne and began to revive Buddhism. The most amazing thing is that Emperor Wencheng and the monk Tan Yao met by chance, and Emperor Wencheng's mount bit the corner of the monk's clothes, and Emperor Wencheng concluded: "Ma Zhi is a good person, this person is designated as a high monk", so he appointed the monk Tan Yao as a Shamen Tong...
After being reused by Emperor Wencheng, the monk Tan Yao deliberately proposed to excavate grottoes to revive Buddhism. Emperor Wencheng was very pleased, believing that he could take the opportunity to repent of his grandfather's mistake in destroying the Buddha, so he approved Tan Yao's proposal and promised the support of the whole country. Tan Yao chose the cliff of the sandstone structure of the sandstone structure in the eastern part of Heijo As the site of the cave, which is the most suitable for carving. The monk tan yao himself was the original chief designer, and most of the craftsmen who served as carvings were moved from Liangzhou after emperor Taiwu Pingbei Liang, because they had excavated the Tianti Mountain or horseshoe temple grottoes, accumulated skilled technology and rich experience, and in this way, the Yungang Grottoes began to be excavated!
According to the research and generally accepted views of experts, the five huge main Buddhas in the cave excavated by Tan Yao imply that emperor Daowu of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the second emperor Mingyuan Emperor, the Taiwu Emperor who once destroyed Buddhism in the unified north, the father of Emperor Wencheng was posthumously honored as Emperor Jingmu and the Wencheng Emperor who built the five caves. At the beginning of Yungang, it absorbed various artistic styles and cultures from the Central Plains and the Western Regions, and recruited the highest level craftsmen in the Northern Wei Dynasty and surrounding countries at that time to excavate day and night. The statue of the "Five Caves of Tan Yao" is extremely simple and beautiful, and can be called a masterpiece in the ancient Chinese grottoes...
Although I followed the docent all the way, the amount of information and the exquisite statues of the grottoes always made me distracted. During the tour, it was heard that during the period from the sixth year of the Northern Wei Dynasty to the eighteenth year of Taihe (465-494), Yungang excavated twelve more grottoes, namely caves 1 to 13, including the unfinished 3rd cave. That stage was during the reign of Empress Feng and Emperor Xiaowen in Pingcheng, and the excavation of the Yungang Grottoes also entered its most prosperous stage. Speaking of which, I must remind everyone that it is necessary to hire a docent, otherwise you will be confused and dazzled, because the historical story is too interesting and too exquisitely carved
In the Yungang Grottoes, not only the grottoes are fascinating, but the loft with flying eaves and angles is also extremely spectacular, but unfortunately, many of them were destroyed by wars or natural disasters, leaving only one after another large-scale beams of the cave entrance, so that we can vaguely feel the huge scale of the attic at that time. What is valuable is that in front of cave 5, there are exquisite and spectacular 5 rooms and 4-story wooden structure lofts built by Qing Shunzhi in 8 years, and cave 5 also has the "first buddha" of Yungang, and the 17-meter-high seated statue of Shakyamuni is really shocking...
There are so many fascinating things about the Yungang Grottoes, such as the statue of Buddha with two small dimples on the south wall of the back room of Cave 8, and the smile shows its teeth. Caves 9 to 13, that group of caves are famous for the clay paintings applied in the Qing Dynasty, and are called "Wuhua Caves". The center of that group of caves is the 12th cave called "Buddha Cave", which is an extremely rare music cave in the domestic grotto group, and the musicians above the north wall of the front room hold a variety of Eastern and Western instruments, like a "symphony orchestra", and cave 12 have become precious materials for studying the ancient music history of our country. Because it is strictly forbidden to take pictures in the cave, we can only look at them in our eyes and remember them in our hearts!
The seated statue of Shakya in Cave 20 is an open-air statue, an indisputable symbol of the Yungang Grottoes, a reproduction of splendid ancient civilization and profound art. Due to the collapse of the cave roof, the statue is exposed, commonly known as the "open-air Buddha". In fact, his body height ranked second from the bottom in the "Five Caves of Tan Yao", only 13.8 meters. The east and west sides of the main Buddha are standing Buddhas, and now the East Buddha is well preserved, and the West Buddhas are destroyed. This place is a place where tourists from home and abroad gather, and the pilgrims flock to it every day...
The wheel of history came to the nineteenth year of Taihe, the Northern Wei Six Palaces and Wenwu moved to Luoyang to build the capital, Pingcheng lost its status as a capital city, and the large-scale excavation of the Northern Wei royal family in the Yungang Grottoes came to an abrupt end, and the excavation cycle was only a short period of 60 years. The remains of unfinished engineering in the forecourt and forecourt of Cave 3 in Yungang are the best testimony to that period of history. After the Northern Wei capital was moved to Luoyang, the Yungang Grottoes were declining day by day, and what continued to be chiseled was spontaneous, and they were all small and medium-sized caves, mainly concentrated in the western part of the cliff, until the complete decline, but only 100 years...
The Yungang Grottoes have been preserved over the past 1,600 years of ups and downs, thanks to the continuous restoration of successive governments and monks. Among them, the Liao Dynasty carried out the largest temple reconstruction and cave maintenance in history, the entire grotto area was divided into ten monasteries, almost all large and medium-sized caves were built outside the Buddha temple-style attic, the maintenance inside the cave was more thorough, that is, at that time, the Buddha statue was installed with black glass beads, we can now see many holes in the statue, which were left over from the maintenance and repair of the chiseling at that time, which shows that the initiatives of promoting Buddhism in the past dynasties have been continuing, which is also the reason why the Yungang Grottoes have been preserved!
Unfortunately, in the process of touring, we also saw a large number of Missing Buddha statues, which were weathered due to wind and rain erosion, but most of them were illegally stolen, and many of the heads are currently treasured in museums in overseas countries, which also shows the humiliating history from the side, which is indignant! In addition, the strangeness of the Yungang Grottoes, one is strange, the second is strange, the third is strange, due to the Cultural Relics of the Yungang Grottoes, there are fewer documents, and many unresolved problems can only rely on speculation, which adds a lot of mysterious color...
We learned that the Yungang Grottoes have a history of about 1,600 years today, and there have been dozens of major earthquakes in history, but the Yungang Grottoes have basically not been damaged on a large scale, thanks to the ingenious and rational structure of the grottoes. In short, the mechanical structure of the caves of the Yungang Grottoes is very scientific. We are also pleased to see that at present, relying on modern scientific means, we are also carrying out effective reinforcement and protection measures for the grotto, and in the process of visiting and browsing, there is a reinforcement demonstration point on the cliff wall at the entrance of the grotto to observe...
We also learned from the introduction of scenic spots: since the 1990s, the surrounding environment of Yungang has achieved remarkable results, the ground in front of the cave has been hardened, the Yungang section of the 109 National Highway has been rerouted, the demolition and square construction in front of the mountain gate, the greening of Yungangyu, the water storage of the Shili River and other large-scale projects have fundamentally solved the problem of coal dust and dust pollution in the grotto area, and completely improved the environmental conditions of the Yungang Grottoes, which is really good! Let's bless the Yungang Grottoes together! Original: Literature and art Shu Huang to see the world, welcome to pay attention!