Longmen Grottoes: The place where the sinicization of cave temple art was completed
China Newsweek reporter/Li Jing
Published in the 2023th issue of China Newsweek magazine on April 4, 3
At the end of the summer of 1906, Zaizawa, the minister sent by the Qing court to Japan and other countries to investigate the constitution, had just returned to China, and Japanese archaeologist and founder of ancient architecture research Sekino Zhen also traveled west to China at this time. He inspected and photographed ancient buildings in Henan and Shaanxi, and when he stood in front of the Longmen Grottoes, he was struck by its spectacular beauty, and took more than <> photos with the photographers who followed him, recording the old photos of the Longmen Grottoes a hundred years ago.
At that time, the relief masterpieces "Wei Xiaowen Emperor Li Buddha Map" and "Wen Zhao Empress Li Buddha Map" (referred to as "Emperor Zhao Li Buddha Map") that appeared in middle school history textbooks were still there; In the Guyang Cave, one of the earliest caves excavated in the Longmen Grottoes, which has a history of 1500,<> years and is the most important of the Northern Wei Buddha art, most of the heads of more than a dozen main Buddha statues representing the best art of Northern Wei Buddha statues are also preserved.
These precious old photos have become an important basis for today's scholars to use modern digital technology to aggregate data on scattered cultural relics fragments and destroyed original sites. Now in the Luoyang Museum in Henan, until the Longmen Grottoes Diaspora Data Aggregation Achievements Special Exhibition on the Convergence of Diaspora Cultural Relics concluded on May 2023, 5, the diaspora cultural relics were finally "unified and digitally reset".
After the ordeal of theft and the passage of time, the treasures lost in history may be difficult to pursue, and the existing statues have time to delay their lives. In the eyes of Shi Jiazhen, director of the Longmen Grotto Research Institute, archaeology is the best protection for cave temples, because they will grow old one day, and only by absorbing the data and information of cultural relics to the greatest extent can the grottoes be left forever to future generations by digital reset.
This grotto, carved into a 1-kilometer-long rock wall between mountains and rivers, still has 2345,11 numbered cave niches, nearly 2890,<> statues, and more than <>,<> inscriptions, which is called "the highest peak of Chinese stone carving art" by UNESCO. It is the place where the Sinicization of cave temple art is completed and the masterpiece, and those statues that have experienced the vicissitudes of the sea but are still beautiful record the sorrow of the years, and also carry the cultural roots of the Central Plains and the memory of the Yellow River civilization, and also imprint the Silk Road cultural imprint of exchange, convergence and integration of different civilizations. There, people of different civilizations, faiths and values can find their home after encountering, colliding and dialogue.
"Central Plains Style"
Driving 12 kilometers south from Luoyang City, you can see Longmen Mountain and Xiangshan Mountain standing opposite each other on both sides of the Yi River from a distance, and the two mountains look at each other, like a natural gate. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, this place was once called "Yique". On the cliffs on both sides, thousands of niches stand quietly, and large and small Buddhist statues are spread out along the river.
Standing at the foot of the 17.14-meter-high Lushena Buddha, which is the business card of the Longmen Grottoes, and then carefully examining the scarred and cracked Buddha statues on the face taken by Professor Sekino Zhenzhen, today's Lushena Buddha has not only not added "wrinkles", but has become "younger" compared to more than a century ago.
Ma Chaolong, director of the Grotto Conservation Research Center of the Longmen Grottoes Research Institute, told China Newsweek that since 1971, the Fengxian Temple, where the Lushena Buddha is located, has been systematically reinforced and repaired for the first time, and after 50 years, in July 2022, Fengxian Temple once again completed 7 days of large-scale seepage water treatment and dangerous rock mass reinforcement protection. Another major overhaul 228 years later, the Longmen Grotto Research Institute took the opportunity to conduct archaeological research and data collection at the same time, relying on scaffolding, one for three purposes.
Taking advantage of the rare "full hall", from June to July 2022, Lu Wei, director of the History and Humanities Research Center of Longmen Grottoes Research Institute, led a team to conduct a comprehensive archaeological survey of Fengxian Temple, which obtained the latest archaeological results of Longmen Grottoes. On the surface of the body of the Lushena Buddha, residues of painted pigments such as green, red, and black were found, gold and silver elements were detected on the face, and gold leaf was found. When it was first built in the Tang Dynasty more than a thousand years ago, the Lushena Buddha was likely to have "gold leaf veneers" and "dressed in neon clothes", which can be imagined as a gorgeous appearance.
The white substance retained on the surface of the Bodhisattva Puxian on the right side of the Great Buddha of Lushena is uniform in thickness and closely combined with the rock. After X-ray fluorescence analysis, its composition is mainly lead white, that is, basic lead carbonate, which was called hu powder, lead powder, gouache in ancient times... "Tiangong Kaiwu" and "Compendium of Materia Medica" are accurately recorded. Lead white is an important pigment for ancient drawings and cosmetics, which not only provides a good interface for pigment adhesion and gold leaf bonding, but also plays a certain role in resisting natural weathering in the later stage.
Puxian Bodhisattva's right eye retains a complete eyeball, which has been tested to be glazed, while the left eye is made of two pieces that have fallen off and been lost near the nose. On this close observation, Lu Wei found that Puxian Bodhisattva's eyes were slightly asymmetrical, the right eye was narrow and long, the angle of the large eye angle (near the bridge of the nose) was very small, about 30°, the shape of the eyeball was regular and symmetrical, while the angle of the large corner of the left eye was large, about 45°, and the eyeball on one side of the large corner of the eye was slightly trapezoidal. "It was intentional by the craftsmen." Lu Wei told China Newsweek that Puxian Bodhisattva served the Great Buddha Lushena, his figure turned slightly to the left, and his asymmetrical eyes were most likely due to the perspective effect, "which cannot but make people marvel at the ingenious conception and sculptural craftsmanship of the ancients."
It can be said that Fengxian Temple represents the highest achievement of early Tang sculpture art. Chang Qing, a professor at the School of Arts of Sichuan University, told China Newsweek that after Buddhism was introduced to China in the Han Dynasty, cave statue art also rose, and the construction boom and artistic peak of Buddhist cave art occurred in the Northern Wei and Tang Dynasties.
According to the inscription, the Longmen Grottoes were excavated during the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei. In the early days of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Xianbei regime Northern Wei unified the north, and Emperor Xiaowen Sinicized the customs, forcing the Xianbei people to change their Han surnames, wear Han clothes, speak Chinese, and accelerate national integration by thunderous means, which also profoundly affected the development of Han civilization.
In 493, Emperor Xiaowen summoned his ministers in Pingcheng (present-day Datong, Shanxi), the capital of the state, to announce an army against the Southern Dynasty. In fact, the southern expedition is just an excuse for him, and the country's southern move to Luoyang is the real purpose. Later, Emperor Xiaowen privately edicted to King Rencheng that the Xianbei people came out of the northern steppe and migrated to Pingcheng, although they had rich materials, but Pingcheng could only be a good place to use troops, but Wenzhi did not have the conditions.
In this year, Emperor Xiaowen broke through the obstruction of the old forces of Xianbei and moved the capital from the remote Pingcheng to Luoyang in the Central Plains. It was during the Southern and Northern Dynasties that Buddhism began to develop rapidly in China. Shiyun: "Four hundred and eighty temples in the southern dynasty", and in the northern dynasty, it is popular to excavate grottoes. After moving the capital, in order to ease class contradictions, Emperor Xiaowen, who was "good at talking about Zhuang Lao, especially refined interpretation", vigorously supported Buddhism and moved the skilled craftsmen of the Yungang Grottoes in Pingcheng to Luoyang, and above the Longmen Gorge, the sound of axes chiseling through clouds and cracked stones began to sound.
Guyang Cave, excavated in 493 AD, is the earliest cave excavated in Longmen Grottoes, which may have been built at the initiative of Emperor Xiaowen, and a group of princes and nobles, important ministers and military generals who supported Emperor Xiaowen's move to the capital also took the lead in chiseling statues in Guyang Cave. Due to the official implementation of the Sinicization policy after Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital, the statues of the stone carvings in the Longmen Caves at this time have obvious Sinicization characteristics, no longer as majestic and rough as the first and second phase statues of the Yungang Grottoes, but tend to be lively, gentle and beautiful, with a slender face, straight chest, thin shoulders, and the carving of clothing patterns using the straight knife method, which is a typical Southern Dynasty Han people advocated "beautiful bone clear image". Later known as the essence of calligraphy art in the Northern Wei period, nineteen of the "Twenty Pins of the Dragon Gate" are in this cave.
In 499, only 6 years after moving the capital, Emperor Xiaowen died at the age of 32. The following year, Emperor Xuanwu prayed for his father Emperor Xiaowen and began to chisel the three caves of Binyang. There are many characters, Gu Pan Shenfei, can be called a masterpiece in the history of Chinese art, and because of this, the relief of the "Empress Rite Buddha Map", which has experienced disasters in the future, is in Binyang Middle Cave. The ceremonial guard in the relief faithfully records the characteristics of the costume after Emperor Xiaowen promoted sinicization. The Buddha Shakyamuni, enshrined in the center of the main wall of the cave, is dressed in a belt-style cassock, with a "U" shape on the chest open, revealing the diagonal collar and knotted band of the inner robe, and the huge cassock is drooping, covering almost the entire square pedestal. Compared with the cultural relics unearthed in the Southern Dynasty at the same time, it is known that this is a typical Central Plains costume, which changes the "favored right shoulder style" of the Yungang Grottoes. The changes in the statue were a direct result of Emperor Xiaowen's reform.
"Xiugu Qing Statue" and "Bow Cloth Belt", this kind of statue-making art suitable for the aesthetics and culture of the Han people in the Central Plains is called "Central Plains Style", not only Longmen Grottoes, but also from the remnants of the tower base of the Northern Wei Yongning Temple unearthed in Luoyang, the Shinto stone carvings of the Northern Wei Mausoleum and other cultural relics. Once this style was formed, it spread its influence outward with Luoyang as the center, and became the era style of the unification of the north and south.
Emperor Xiaowen succeeded. This time the capital was moved, more than 100 million immigrants, including Xianbei and northern ethnic groups, were integrated into the Central Plains, making Luoyang once again the cultural center of the north and even Asia, and laying the foundation for the Sheng Tang civilization. The centuries-long construction of Longmen Grottoes also began here.
Da Tang style
When history reached Emperor Xiaowen's grandson, Emperor Xiaoming, civil strife broke out in the dynasty, and after several court struggles, in 528, the 19-year-old Emperor Xiaoming was poisoned by his biological mother, and the Northern Wei Dynasty collapsed. After that, although Buddhism was still revered by the emperor, and Buddhism and Buddhist art continued to develop in the process of Sinicization, Luoyang first became a battlefield for the continuous conquests of Eastern Wei and Western Wei, and later lost its status as a political and cultural center, and the construction of the ideal brilliant project Binyang Three Caves was abolished, and only Binyang Middle Cave was completed.
The first large-scale opening of the Longmen Grottoes began in 493 AD and ended in 528, after a total of 35 years after the Northern Wei Emperors Xiaowen, Xuanwu and Xiaoming. The unfinished Binyang South and North Caves of the Northern Wei Dynasty had to be spent more than a hundred years in the stone walls on the banks of the Yi River, and were not completed until the time of Emperor Taizong of Tang.
In the Tang Dynasty, the development of Buddhist art had reached its peak, and Emperor Taizong of Tang restored the status of Luoyang as the eastern capital. At that time, the crown prince Chenggan was not valued by Li Shimin, and the princes coveted the throne, and the second son Li Tai performed the most prominently, he knew that Li Shimin missed it very much after the death of Empress Changsun, so he continued to dig the north and south caves of Binyang in Longmen Grottoes to pray for Empress Changsun... Perhaps because this move is only to accumulate political capital, the project is fast and not refined, and the Binyang South and North Caves completed in the early Tang Dynasty are not the same as the Binyang Middle Cave in the Northern Wei Dynasty in terms of craftsmanship and artistic value.
Li Tai would not have thought that because of "too much force", these two caves could not help him succeed, but because there was a Buddha statue in the north cave with the thumb, index finger and middle finger facing up and accidentally forming "scissorhands" due to the thumb breakage, it became popular on the Internet more than a thousand years later. The second stage of the large-scale excavation of the Longmen Grottoes, which began with him, reached its peak under his younger brothers Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi and Wu Zetian.
At this time, people's aesthetics were very different from the Northern Wei dynasty's "Xiuguo Qing Statue", advocating a healthy and plump physique, so Tang Dynasty statues usually had a folded neck, a round face, broad shoulders, a bulging chest, and the carving of clothing patterns using the round knife method. After arriving at Tang Xuanzong, the appearance of the statue was more abundant than that of the early Tang Dynasty.
The statues of the Tang Dynasty inherited the tradition of the Northern Wei Dynasty absorbing the culture of the Han people, and further created a vivid and natural realistic style. For example, many of the "trick lotian" images in reliefs, the Northern Wei period clothing has been sinicized, but they often fly and soar on the roof of the cave, the backlight of the Buddha and the lintel, the beautiful dance posture is very different from the posture of the dancers in life, their lower body, especially the legs, is like a floating cloud in the sky. The caves excavated in the Tang Dynasty allowed these heavenly women to return to the world, standing on the ground and dancing, and the bodybuilding dance posture was closer to reality and secular life, and Buddhist cave art had been perfectly integrated with Chinese culture, aesthetics and practical life at that time.
The most representative of the Tang Dynasty statues is undoubtedly the Lushena Buddha, which is the largest and most representative Buddha statue in the Longmen Grottoes, known as "good and rare, like the moon like the sun". According to the "Legend of the Great Lushena Statue Shrine of the Yang of Longmen Mountain in Heluo", which was re-engraved in the tenth year (722) of Tang Xuanzong at the north end of the Lushena Buddha statue, the Great Buddha was built first, and the Buddhist temple was built later. When opening the cave stone carving Buddha statues, the method of excavating the caves was not adopted, and the nine large statues of one Buddha, two disciples, two bodhisattvas, two heavenly kings, and two lux statues were hewn into the open air.
The Buddha statue was completed in 675 AD, and because the exact year of construction is unknown, there are many theories in the archaeological community about the construction period, which is difficult to unify in 3, 5, 10 to 20 years. After research, Lovells believes that 10 years is a more historically realistic estimate.
天后武则天以皇后身份于咸亨三年(672年)拿出自己的两万贯脂粉钱资助这一浩大工程，用当时的粮食价格换算，相当于现代六百多万人民币，此举成为她极其信奉佛教的标示。相传，卢舍那佛就是依照武则天面貌雕凿而成。而以武则天日后称帝的政治抱负来看，龙门石窟研究院院长史家珍不认为她会有多么笃信宗教，赞助修建卢舍那大佛是为政治目标服务——为当皇帝一步步做精神上、信仰上的铺垫，但要说大佛完全按照她的相貌雕刻，那又小看了她的智慧，“应该是把她的形象糅进去了一部分”。
梵语中，卢舍那为光明普照之意。公元684年，武则天为自己取名“武曌”，意为日月万里晴空，大佛不但形似武后，连名字的含义也与武则天的名字互通。
如今，站在卢舍那大佛脚下仰望，目光恰同佛像微微俯视的双眼交会，佛像唇边的微笑似有似无，由于面相中带有女性的优美，佛像似乎更显恬静慈悲。卢舍那大佛的面部形象被誉为中国雕塑史上的典范，是神性与人性的结合，代表中国石刻艺术的最高峰，海外不少媒体称其为“东方的蒙娜丽莎”，龙门石窟研究院院长史家珍对《中国新闻周刊》感慨：“这真是委屈了卢舍那大佛，蒙娜丽莎是平面画作，大佛是立体石雕且距今已1300多年，无论技术水平还是其承载的文化、历史价值，都不是一个重量级。”
龙门石窟第二次大规模开窟造像时期约为公元636年至746年，历经四帝：唐太宗、唐高宗、武则天、唐玄宗。在龙门石窟所有洞窟中，唐代占60%，北魏洞窟约占30%，其他朝代仅占10%左右。据龙门石窟研究院统计，武则天参与和掌管国政的半个世纪内，龙门石窟内共发现造像纪年296例，占唐代纪年题记的66%。
这一时期，洛阳实际担负起了都城角色，是当时全国的统治中心，位于洛阳近郊的龙门石窟因其佛教文化内因和特殊地理位置，成为最高统治者的皇权展示场、情感寄居地和佛教信仰的载体，与当时的社会政治密切相关，也引领了当时的文化情态。此时龙门石窟的造像，无论在数量上还是在艺术造诣上，都达到了顶点，巨大的审美影响不但辐射全国，还形成了风靡韩国和日本的寺窟造像风格——“大唐风范”。
公元752年，日本光明皇后仰慕武则天修建的卢舍那大佛，在当时日本首都奈良的东大寺，效仿修造了一尊青铜制卢舍那大佛，今称“奈良大佛”。韩国庆州始建于新罗景德王10年(公元751年)的石窟庵，其中佛像风格也深受唐代造像影响。
帝后礼佛图“复活”
盛唐之后，洛阳的佛教活动逐渐衰落，中国的石窟造像艺术发展南移至四川等地，截至北宋，龙门石窟造像停止。伊河依旧流淌，倒映着两岸的龙门山、香山以及山体峭壁上伸展开来的洞窟。从唐代起，这里就是风景名胜，白居易曾记：“洛都四郊，山水之胜，龙门首焉”。当帝王将相们离去，龙门石窟对于生活在这里的人们，是风景，也是求神拜佛之所，元明清几朝，石窟虽然不再新增造像，却有不少文人墨客前来题刻题字。直到十九世纪末二十世纪初，它再一次被世界发现。
第一个将龙门石窟介绍给世界的外国人是日本学者冈仓天心。1893年，在中国游历的冈仓天心偶然发现了龙门石窟。他在日记中赞叹：“龙门石窟自身就是一座博物馆。”待他回到日本，用宾阳洞的照片制成幻灯片，举办了讲座，龙门石窟很快声名远播。此后，法国汉学家爱德华·沙畹、美国收藏家查尔斯·朗·弗利尔、日本学者关野贞等纷至沓来。
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Dynasty, as these scholars continued to publish research monographs and photographs on the Longmen Grottoes, disaster arose, and they inadvertently provided greedy antiquities dealers and thieves' catalogs with photographs. Luoyang scholar Zhao Zhenhua stated in "The History of Longmen Grottoes Theft" that the most serious period of man-made destruction of Longmen Grottoes can almost run through the first half of the 20th century. In 1918, when Guan Yezhen came to Longmen Grottoes again after 12 years, he was surprised to find that of the 1906 large niches he had photographed in Guyang Cave in 16 representing the best art of Northern Wei Buddha statues, 10 of the 9 main Buddha statues that were well preserved at that time had their heads stolen. His photograph of the pinnacle of Northern Wei relief art, the Empress Rite Buddha Map, was left with mottled remnants shortly after his second visit to China.
In his book "History of the Dragon Gate", Lu Wei detailed the history of the theft and sale of the "Emperor Li Buddha Map". In just three or five years, the reliefs that have been intact for more than 1400,<> years have been turned into rubble under the hands of the thieves, leaving the mother body and the homeland, and after several turns, they are now collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Nelson Museum in New York.
Once the cultural relics have left the country, returning them is not an easy task. Gao Junping, director of the Information and Information Center of the Longmen Grottoes Research Institute, lamented to China Newsweek: "Back then, the Empress Rite Buddha Map was stolen and sold, and a contract was signed. "The person who signed the contract was Yue Bin, a Beijing cultural relics dealer, who made a lot of fake fragments for profit, and then sold the real and fake fragments of the "Empress Rite Buddha Map" abroad in batches. The tools of the thief he hired were primitive, and in a hurry, some stonemasons used fire and water to peel off the reliefs, resulting in large pieces the size of ping-pong rackets and small ones the size of fingernails. Once out of place, the cultural relics become cultural "fragments", although the Nelson Museum spliced the fragments, but the acquired fragments were only enough to spell out 2/3 of the "Wen Zhao Empress Rite Buddha Map", and due to the backward technology and limited reference materials at that time, there were many errors in the restoration, and the mural charm was no longer there. Wu Hong, director of the Center for East Asian Art Studies at the University of Chicago, once told the media, "The Chinese culture they carry has become shallow, scrawled, and no longer complete." "This also brings great difficulties to digital restoration in the future.
In 2018, the Longmen Grottoes Research Institute began to launch the digital restoration of the "Empress Wenzhao Rite Buddha Map". "The advance is relatively slow, more than 4,<> fragments, there are fakes in them, which need to be screened to determine that they are genuine pieces, and each piece finds its exact location, full of hardship and triviality." Gao Junping said.
Jia Pufei, an art professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University who participated in the digital restoration project, still remembers almost crying when he saw an old photo of the Nelson Museum stitching together fragments of the "Empress Wenzhao" in 2018 at the University of Chicago's East Asian Art Center, because the messy debris looked like a pile of stone garbage.
Over the course of several years, the scholars involved in the project first identified more than 2000,<> fragments kept in the Nelson Museum's warehouse, which were considered forgeries when the museum was spliced together, and found that there were also genuine items. Subsequently, the team scanned the relief remnants of the Binyang Middle Cave of Longmen Grottoes, completed the data collection of discrete cultural relics entities and mothers, and then restored the relief shape and restored the original situation. On the computer, by adjusting the distortion of the lens of the old photo, aligning the common feature points of the old photo and the residual wall, so that the orthographic projection of the stump and the orthographic projection of the old photo overlap, they obtained the original contour line and accurate position of the relief on the stump wall, and then dragged the virtual "fragments" one by one to carefully compare its position relationship on the stump model relief outline. It is a complex process that brings together academia, technology and art.
At present, the virtual restoration of the original scale "Empress Wenzhao's Rite Buddha Map" has achieved phased results, and the virtual restoration of "Wei Xiaowen Emperor Rite Buddha Map" is also about to start.
When will the artifacts actually come home? Shi Jiazhen believes that we should rationally face the Chinese cultural relics scattered overseas in history, and the return of physical objects is a long process. At the moment, "digital restoration of cultural relics may not be the most perfect ending, but it is a better choice under the current conditions." In his vision, digitalization is also the best way to maximize the art and history behind the caves to the public.
As a native of Henan, he often sighs that the Longmen Grottoes are more like a tourist attraction in people's impressions, and people come in a hurry, walk around, take pictures, and leave in a hurry. He believes that there must be tourists who have a thirst for more information about history and art, or have the potential to cultivate such a thing. At present, the caves of Longmen Grottoes are not open, there is a fence at the entrance of the cave, people can only look at the door, Shi Jiazhen plans to open some caves in the future, of course, to strictly limit the number of people, and at the same time with digital restoration technology, "Look at what the statues and reliefs are like now, and then look at what they were back then, isn't the sense of gain stronger?" Since the cultural relics are currently overseas, they should not be connected with any "shallow, puffy" feeling, but should be complete and profound, after all, they all carry a heavy Chinese history and culture.
The capital played a key role
Not long ago, a "Schematic Map of the Eastern Transmission of Buddhist Grottoes to China" was circulated on the Internet, a series of arrows, from west to east, marking the route of Buddhist cave temple art to China to the east. From the Bamiyan Grottoes in Afghanistan and Peshawar (Gandhara) in Pakistan, it was introduced east to Xinjiang, China, and then into Dunhuang, and from Dunhuang to Zhangye and Wuwei in the east, and then divided into several eastward convergences, forming Datong Yungang, Luoyang Longmen and other grotto groups...
When Chang Qing, a professor at the School of Arts of Sichuan University, gave lectures on cave art in various places, he often encountered such a question: "In the process of the spread of grottoes from west to east..." There are always people who regard the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes as the source of the development of grottoes in China. He told China Newsweek: "This is really a common misconception. ”
Historically, cave temples have been spread thanks to the spread of Buddhism, and grottoes as art serve Buddhist teachings. The reason why the caves are called cave temples is because it is also a place of Buddhist practice and a supplement to the temple. At the time of the formation of cave temples in various historical stages, it was naturally the city that was located as the center of religion that played an important role.
If there is any relationship between the existing grottoes in China, Changqing believes that the key depends on who is in the leading position at different times. During the Northern Wei Dynasty, after Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital, the Longmen Grottoes were undoubtedly inherited on the basis of the Yungang Grottoes when they were built, and at the same time, the Yungang Grottoes and Longmen Grottoes played a key role in the excavation of the Northern Wei Grottoes in Dunhuang, Bingling Temple, Maijishan, Longdong and other places, while the Southern Dynasty Grottoes and Buddhist art represented by Nanjing influenced Yungang and Longmen. In the Tang Dynasty, the second peak of grotto development, Chang'an and Luoyang influenced the formation of grottoes in Dunhuang, Sichuan Guangyuan, and Anyue Reclining Buddha Monastery.
"It's the central government that influences the localities." Lu Wei told China Newsweek that the spread of Buddhism in China accepted the influence of India and Central Asia in different historical periods, and Buddhism played a key role in the process of continuous sinicization, and the capital located in the center of religion played a key role, and the shape and content of China's cave temples have long departed from the Indian model, generally imitating the main halls located in the ground monasteries in the capital area in various historical periods.
During the High Tang Dynasty, Chinese Buddhism tended to flourish, with many lineages, and there were famous "Ten Temples of Longmen" around the Longmen Grottoes. In his later years, Bai Juyi lived in seclusion for more than ten years in Xiangshan Temple, one of the "Ten Temples of the Dragon Gate", the royal temple of the Tang Dynasty, so he was named "Xiangshan Jushi". In 2020, the Luoyang Longmen Grottoes Research Institute released an important archaeological result - the discovery of the Tang Dynasty Indian monk Di Bhara Tomb Pagoda at the site of Xiangshan Temple. According to the Tang Dynasty Fazang "Biography of the Huayan Sutra", Di Po Luo practiced advanced practice, and in the late Tang Gaozong and Wu Zetian periods, he translated more than ten Buddhist scriptures in Chang'an and Luoyang.
The Longmen Grottoes of the Tang Dynasty not only had royal statues, but also people from Tianzhu (present-day India), Silla (present-day Korea), Tocharian (Siberia), Kang Guo (Central Asia) and other countries also came to Luoyang to open caves and make statues.
Lu Wei sighed that whether it is a thriving monastery, a senior monk from afar or a statue of a person from abroad, it is the embodiment of Luoyang City, an important node on the Silk Road, which is open, inclusive, prosperous and at the center of religion and culture. These frequent exchanges and exchanges brought the "Tang style" of the Longmen Grottoes to the border city of Dunhuang and other places, and also influenced the statues in Japan, Korea and other places.
For example, the painted statues of the Mogao Grottoes in the early Tang Dynasty have completely adopted the method of round sculpture, with a rich and round face, and pay more attention to realism and close to real life. When Wu Zetian came to power, he liked to build a big Buddha, first took out fat powder money to fund the construction of the Lushena Big Buddha, and then in the first year of Yanzai (694) edict Xue Huaiyi and others to build a large statue, influenced by this atmosphere, the next year the Lingyin Zen master and Yin ancestor in the Dunhuang area jointly funded the construction of the tallest Buddha statue in Mogao Grottoes, the face of this statue also has female characteristics, the grotto where it is located is now numbered Cave 96 of the Early Tang Dynasty, but unfortunately this statue was repeatedly rebuilt in the late Tang, early Song and Qing dynasties, and only the Buddha head still retains the plump and round old appearance of the early Tang Dynasty, Tang wind is no longer visible in other parts.
Various differences and controversies in the archaeological community almost accompany the development of this discipline, among which cave temple archaeology is the same, and different scholars have their own ideas on the relationship and influence of caves and artistic origins between each cave group. Changqing remembers that in the late 80s, when he graduated with a master's degree, his mentor, Su Bai, the founder and founder of Chinese cave archaeology, took several of their students to Yungang Grottoes for investigation, and Mr. Su's student in the 60s, Fan Jinshi, then vice president of the Dunhuang Academy, also went. At that time, for the earliest caves 268, 272 and 275 of the Mogao Grottoes, Su Bai disagreed with the "Northern Liang Theory" of the Dunhuang Academy and proposed a new theory of the "Northern Wei Theory", and he judged that this group of caves were all Northern Wei caves, and they accepted the influence of the second phase of Yungang.
Some scholars such as Su Bai support the "Eastern Speaking" view, but the scholars of the Dunhuang Academy prefer "local speaking". That year, in the Yungang Grottoes, Su Bai and Fan Jinshi were walking in front, Changqing and a few classmates were following, and he heard Su Bai pointing to the huge statue of Maitreya Bodhisattva in Cave 17 and saying to Fan Jinshi: "Look here, is it not like your 275 statue in Dunhuang?" Look at this, who influences whom? Fan Jinshi followed quietly and never answered.
Controversy is argument, Changqing said, "There will always be different opinions about the results of archaeology." "People who study caves see the friction and collision between different cultures, and then the exchange and integration. As a form of religious art, cave temples involve much more than religion and art, and from what angles should we understand the historical background and social microcosm behind the excavation of caves? These questions, perhaps, will always have different answers.
Even in different answers, these cave temples everywhere show how Buddhism was introduced to China, how it affected the people at that time, how it was gradually sinicized in the run-in with Chinese society, and how China, which is constantly changing in history, embraces different nationalities, different cultures and different civilizations with an open attitude. With this historical perspective, perhaps today we will know better how to view each other.
China Newsweek, Issue 2023, 12
Disclaimer: The publication of China Newsweek manuscripts is authorized in writing