Longmen Grottoes
Longmen Grottoes
I became intrigued with Buddhist cave art on my first trip to China in 1984 when our tour group visited Thousand Buddha Hill near Jinan in Shandong Province. I was simply blown away by the Buddhas, ranging from a few inches to many feet tall carved into the hillside. The carvings began during the Tang Dynasty.
I’ve included a few photos of Thousand Buddha Hill in the slide show below. A lot of preservation work has been going on since I was there, so if you go today, it will probably look different.
A little over 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Longmen Grottoes at Luoyang. The site has more than 100,000 statues of Buddha and his disciples carved into a hillside facing the Yi River. Wow! The visit to Longmen was the highlight of that trip to China.
Located about nine miles south of Luoyang, Longmen Grottoes is one of the three most famous grottoes in China. The other two are Yungang Caves near Datong in Shanxi Province and Mogao Caves near Dunhuang in west China’s Gansu Province. The other two grottoes are on my bucket list of places to visit in China.
Construction of the Longmen Grottoes began in the late fifth century when a Northern Wei emperor moved the capital of China from Datong, where grottoes had already been built, to Luoyang. The carving took place over the next 400 years, ending with the decline of the Tang Dynasty.
The Longmen Grottoes “represent the high point of Chinese stone carving,” according to UNESCO which named them a World Heritage Site in 2000.
Some of the statues of Buddha and his disciples are only a few inches tall, while others are tens of feet high. The cave carvings span almost 1,100 yards, with more than 2,300 holes and niches, 3,600 stone tablets with Buddhist inscriptions, 40 dagobas, 1,300 caves and more than 100,000 statues.
At 118 feet wide and 136 feet tall, Fengxian Temple is the largest grotto at Longmen. There are nine statues here, with the largest a Buddha sitting cross-legged on a throne. The head is about 13 feet wide and the ears more than six feet long. The Buddha’s face is believed to be modeled after Tang Empress Wu Zetian, who funded the statue’s carving.
The Wanfo Cave has 15,000 small statues of Buddha carved into cave walls. There are reliefs of singers and dancers carved into the walls, giving this cave a cheerful appearance.
Altogether there are seven major cave areas. Some of the statues are at ground level, but others can only be reached by climbing long, steep staircases to view them. Many of the statues are crumbling as they are exposed to the elements, but still bear hints of a glorious past.
Longmen is open daily, with longer hours in the summer. It can be reached by taxi or bus number 81 from the Luoyang Train Station. It is also do-able on a long day trip from Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province. Longmen makes a good stopover when you’re traveling between Beijing and Xi’an. (I like the Longmen Grottoes better than the Terracotta Warriors.)
Besides the grottoes, Luoyang also is known for its beautiful peonies and decorative ceramic tiles. I bought a bunch of tiles when I was there; unfortunately, the airline mangled my luggage and most of them arrived home broken.
I’ve included a few photos of Thousand Buddha Hill in the slide show below. A lot of preservation work has been going on since I was there, so if you go today, it will probably look different.
A little over 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Longmen Grottoes at Luoyang. The site has more than 100,000 statues of Buddha and his disciples carved into a hillside facing the Yi River. Wow! The visit to Longmen was the highlight of that trip to China.
Located about nine miles south of Luoyang, Longmen Grottoes is one of the three most famous grottoes in China. The other two are Yungang Caves near Datong in Shanxi Province and Mogao Caves near Dunhuang in west China’s Gansu Province. The other two grottoes are on my bucket list of places to visit in China.
Construction of the Longmen Grottoes began in the late fifth century when a Northern Wei emperor moved the capital of China from Datong, where grottoes had already been built, to Luoyang. The carving took place over the next 400 years, ending with the decline of the Tang Dynasty.
The Longmen Grottoes “represent the high point of Chinese stone carving,” according to UNESCO which named them a World Heritage Site in 2000.
Some of the statues of Buddha and his disciples are only a few inches tall, while others are tens of feet high. The cave carvings span almost 1,100 yards, with more than 2,300 holes and niches, 3,600 stone tablets with Buddhist inscriptions, 40 dagobas, 1,300 caves and more than 100,000 statues.
At 118 feet wide and 136 feet tall, Fengxian Temple is the largest grotto at Longmen. There are nine statues here, with the largest a Buddha sitting cross-legged on a throne. The head is about 13 feet wide and the ears more than six feet long. The Buddha’s face is believed to be modeled after Tang Empress Wu Zetian, who funded the statue’s carving.
The Wanfo Cave has 15,000 small statues of Buddha carved into cave walls. There are reliefs of singers and dancers carved into the walls, giving this cave a cheerful appearance.
Altogether there are seven major cave areas. Some of the statues are at ground level, but others can only be reached by climbing long, steep staircases to view them. Many of the statues are crumbling as they are exposed to the elements, but still bear hints of a glorious past.
Longmen is open daily, with longer hours in the summer. It can be reached by taxi or bus number 81 from the Luoyang Train Station. It is also do-able on a long day trip from Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province. Longmen makes a good stopover when you’re traveling between Beijing and Xi’an. (I like the Longmen Grottoes better than the Terracotta Warriors.)
Besides the grottoes, Luoyang also is known for its beautiful peonies and decorative ceramic tiles. I bought a bunch of tiles when I was there; unfortunately, the airline mangled my luggage and most of them arrived home broken.
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Copyright 2012 by Cheryl Probst. All rights reserved.
Copyright 2012 by Cheryl Probst. All rights reserved.