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I woke up this morning feeling 90% better than yesterday. I still had a bit of nausea when I ate my breakfast, but no fever or bodily weakness like yesterday. Taking this into account, and my morning excursion to the Mogao Grottoes Caves, I’ve already had a highly successful day.
The Mogao Caves were amazing. Undoubtedly a highlight of this trip. It’s a pity that I have no pictures of the place, as they don’t allow you to bring cameras. Perhaps I’ll scan a couple of pictures from books, just so you can get an idea. The historical significance of this place is HUGE. I mentioned yesterday that Dunhuang is an oasis town in the desert, in the far northwest reaches of China. As such, it has served as a major stop along the Silk Road since its existence.  For travelers going westward from China, it was the last spot that was both familiar to the Chinese (though not always under Chinese rule), and the last place to stock up on resources and recharge before taking on an extremely long stretch of desert – over 1500km. For travelers coming from the west to China, Dunhuang was where the hardest part of the journey ended. In light of these circumstances, Dunhuang meant a lot to people traveling through. So much, in fact, that they had these caves dug, murals painted, and sculptures, well… sculpted. For those heading into the desert, these were offerings to Buddha to ensure a safe journey. For those coming out of the desert, they were symbols of gratitude for Buddha’s watching over them through the desert. It is quite clear to me that the people traveling the Silk Road were some of the wealthiest people of their times. Considering the amount of wealth it would have taken to have enough food, water, supplies, camels, horses, and hired hands, it truly amazes me that these people had SO much extra that they were able to build huge caves literally filled with intricate paintings and elaborate sculptures (one of them 35.5 meters high), using real gold, and various dyes and pigments even MORE expensive than gold. My mind is plenty boggled.
I’d like to give a bit of background. I apologize in advance if this starts to sound like a history lesson, but I’ll justify it thusly: 1) Dunhuang has an amazing past, which even I find interesting, and I’ve never been someone who was particularly hooked on history, and 2) I doubt I will be able to write something long enough to really bore you within the limits of this weblog. One disclaimer, though: The information I tell you here is what I’ve gathered from books, the Internet, my guide at the caves, and various signs at the caves and in the attached museum. I make no guarantees about the historical validity, though I’m pretty sure I’m not WAY off.
Dunhuang’s past goes hand in hand with the Silk Road’s. It was developing before and all through the Qin Dynasty (221 BC – 206 BC – The Qin dynasty is considered to be the first dynasty to unite most of what is now considered China, and is where the name “China” comes from. Qin is pronounced like “chin”). The Chinese officially settled it in 121, during the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). During this time Dunhuang had a population of over 76,000 - compared to around 20,000 today. The city has since been dominated by various kingdoms in the area, such as Tibetan, Uyghurs, and Mongols, and even went through periods of abandonment. Finally, during the Qing Dynasty (1644 AD – 1911 AD), the Chinese re-established control and have pretty much maintained it since.
Another name for the Mogao Caves is “Thousand Buddha Caves,” just like at Bezeklik in Turpan. It turns out that this name is used in lots of places for similar sites where caves have been dug and Buddhist art has been placed. Originally, I thought “thousand” was just an exaggeration of the number of caves. But in Mogao, I realized that the meaning of this name is actually “one thousand Buddhas in a cave,” and in many cases, it is NO exaggeration. Any wall or ceiling space that isn’t used for a mural is covered with small paintings or clay sculptures of Buddha, from a few centimeters tall, to up to .3-.4 meters tall.
The first caves were dug in the mid-4th century, at the beginnings of the Wei Dynasty (386 AD – 581 AD). The sculptures and paintings in these early caves show the most Greco-Roman and Indian influence. The figures are more serene; skin colors are often represented with very dark greys and black, as opposed to the far lighter colors of the later caves. They also have many other less-Chinese features such as wider faces, bigger noses, and curly hair. As time goes on, the depictions in the caves become more and more Chinese in appearance and many other details, such as clothing and painting style. This is a natural side-effect of Chinese wanting to worship deities that look like themselves.
Another aspect of these images that changes over the centuries is the placement and size of the donor in the picture. When I say donor, I’m referring to the person who sponsored/financed the creation of the cave and/or its contents. In the earlier caves, the donors are very small compared to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and are restricted to the very bottom of the murals, always bowing low, presenting offerings. In some of the later caves, the donors are much larger, almost as large as the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and sometimes even depicted amongst them as opposed to strictly below them.
Caves were built during the Wei (386 AD – 581 AD), Sui (581 AD – 618 AD), and Tang (618 AD – 907 AD) Dynasties. During the next few dynasties, there was no more room to dig new caves. Instead, many people just restored caves, enlarged and added to them, or covered the walls of old caves and started with a clean slate. Because of this, some caves have layer under layer of paintings. During the reign of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1279 AD –1368 AD), and the Qing Dynasty (1644 AD – 1911 AD), many restorations were done to the caves. For some reason, though, it seems that people largely forgot about the caves during the Ming Dynasty (1368 AD – 1644 AD).
Around the late 19th century was when westerners first discovered the caves. Some of them were historians/explorers/archeologists. This group is largely responsible for the removal of the lion’s share of the scrolls, paintings, and sculptures stored at the caves. Almost all of these scrolls, silk paintings, etc came from cave number 17, called the “Library Cave” or “Sutra Cave”. There were originally over 50,000 documents in cave number 17, in many languages such as Chinese Tibetan, Mongolian, Uyghur, Sanskrit, and some unknown ones. Some very surprising things turned up in this cave, in addition to all the sutras and paintings. There is a written copy of the Diamond Sutra, believed to be one of the world’s oldest printed books. There are even some depictions of Greek/Roman deities, such as the goddess Athena and the god Eros.
At the time, there was a Daoist monk acting as self-appointed curator of the caves, named Wang Yuanlu, or “Abbot Wang”. Being a little bit naïve, and too easily persuaded, he sold a huge number of precious documents to this series of explorers. Originally he agreed to the sale of these goods for the sake of supporting his pet project, which was the restoration and maintenance of the caves, but he ended up doing the exact opposite. In one instance, he sold 24 crates of manuscripts and five crates of paintings to a man named Sir Aurel Stein for 130 British pounds. Because of all this, these explorers are now known as the “Foreign Devils on the Silk Road,” and Abbot Wang is thought of as a complete traitor to China. It should be noted, however, that after the Chinese decided to take what was left of the library and move it to Beijing for safe keeping, the transport envoy didn’t treat these relics with much respect, either. Manuscripts were even given to officials of local towns and cities as bribes for passage.
Of the original 50,000, only a few thousand remain in China. Most are in England, France, India, Korea, Russia, and Japan – all taken or bought by explorer/historians. My guide said that China continues to wish for their return, but that little progress is ever made.
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