Mogao Caves at Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on the Silk Road

The Mogao Caves, also called the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, are a complex of Buddhist cave temples cut into a cliff near the oasis town of Dunhuang in north-west China. Tradition dates their founding to AD 366, when a monk named Lezun carved a meditation cave there, and work continued for about a thousand years. Their murals, sculptures and manuscripts make Mogao one of the most important sites for understanding Buddhism and the Silk Road.

Dunhuang: gateway to the west

Dunhuang lies at the western end of the Hexi Corridor, the narrow strip of land between mountains and desert that linked the Chinese heartland with Central Asia. Han China established a commandery there in the late 2nd century BC, after missions such as Zhang Qian’s journey to the west opened contacts with the lands beyond.

Caravan routes divided at Dunhuang, running north and south of the Taklamakan Desert. Merchants, soldiers, envoys and monks all passed through. Buddhism, which had spread from India through Central Asia under rulers such as those of the Kushan Empire, reached China along these routes, and Dunhuang became an early centre of Buddhist translation and practice.

In the 4th century north China was divided among rival states after the fall of the Western Jin. Dunhuang was then under the Former Liang, a regional state that preserved relative stability and attracted refugees and scholars.

The founding by Lezun

The story of the founding comes from a stone stele erected in 698, during the Tang dynasty, which quotes an older record. It says that in 366 a monk named Lezun, travelling with his staff, reached the Mingsha Hills. At sunset he saw a golden light shining like a thousand Buddhas over the opposite mountain, Sanwei, and he decided to cut a cave in the cliff face to meditate.

Soon afterwards a monk named Faliang arrived from the east and made a second cave next to Lezun’s. Others followed, and local families began to sponsor caves as acts of religious merit.

None of the earliest caves can be identified with certainty today; they were probably small and plain and may have been destroyed or rebuilt. The oldest surviving decorated caves, numbers 268, 272 and 275, are usually dated to the early 5th century, when Dunhuang was ruled by the Northern Liang.

The early caves and their art

The first decorated caves combined influences from India, Central Asia and China. Cave 275 contains a large seated figure of the future Buddha Maitreya with crossed ankles, a pose found in Gandharan and Central Asian art. Walls were painted with jataka tales, stories of the Buddha’s previous lives, arranged in long horizontal bands.

Caves followed a few basic plans. Some had a central pillar that worshippers walked around in a ritual circuit; others were small cells for meditation; later caves had a large main hall with an altar. The soft conglomerate rock was unsuitable for carving fine statues, so the sculptures were made of clay over wooden frames and then painted.

Early painters used mineral pigments such as malachite green, azurite blue and red ochre. Some lead-based colours have since darkened, which is why many figures in the early caves now have black faces and bodies that originally looked pink or flesh-toned.

A thousand years of building

Under the Northern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Zhou and Sui dynasties, the number of caves grew steadily. The Tang period (618–907) was the high point: caves such as Cave 96, with its colossal seated Buddha about 35 metres high built in 695, and Cave 130 with another giant Buddha, date from this time. Large painted paradise scenes, showing Buddhas surrounded by palaces, music and dancers, became common.

Later rulers of Dunhuang, including Tibetan governors, the local Guiyijun regime, the Uyghurs, the Tangut Western Xia and the Mongol Yuan, all added or restored caves. The murals are valuable far beyond religious history. Alongside Buddhas and bodhisattvas they show donors in their best clothes, farmers ploughing, merchants and their camels, wedding feasts, hunting scenes, musicians with dozens of kinds of instruments, and buildings that no longer exist anywhere else. Historians of costume, music, medicine and architecture all draw on them.

Many caves were paid for by leading local families, monasteries and officials, whose portraits and inscriptions appear on the walls. These donor records help scholars date the caves and trace the changing politics of Dunhuang, a frontier town that passed between Chinese, Tibetan and Central Asian powers.

Activity faded after the 14th century as sea trade and new routes reduced Dunhuang’s importance.

The Library Cave

In 1900 the Daoist monk Wang Yuanlu, who had appointed himself caretaker of the site, discovered a small sealed chamber off the passage of Cave 16. This Library Cave, now Cave 17, held tens of thousands of manuscripts, paintings and prints, sealed probably in the early 11th century for reasons that are still debated.

The documents were written in Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Khotanese, Sogdian, Uyghur and other languages. Among them is a copy of the Diamond Sutra printed in 868, the earliest dated printed book. Between 1907 and 1924 explorers including Aurel Stein, Paul Pelliot, Ōtani Kōzui’s expeditions, Sergei Oldenburg and Langdon Warner removed large numbers of items, which are now in London, Paris, St Petersburg, Kyoto, Beijing and elsewhere. Their removal remains a sensitive issue in China.

By the numbers

Legacy and conservation

The Mogao Caves were declared a national protected site in China in 1961 and added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987. The Dunhuang Academy, working with partners such as the Getty Conservation Institute, studies the effects of humidity, salts and visitor numbers and has photographed many caves in high resolution.

Conservation is a constant challenge. Sand blown from the dunes above the cliff, rising groundwater salts and the breath of visitors all damage the paintings, so the academy limits daily visitor numbers and uses a visitor centre with digital films to reduce time spent inside the caves.

Mogao also gave its name to Dunhuang studies, an international field of research built on the Library Cave manuscripts. Comparable Buddhist sites in Asia include the Ajanta Caves in India and the Yungang Grottoes near Datong.

Timeline

• c. 111 BC: Han China establishes Dunhuang commandery (some sources give slightly later dates).
• 366: The monk Lezun cuts the first cave, according to the stele of 698.
• Early 5th century: Caves 268, 272 and 275, the oldest surviving decorated caves, are made.
• 695: The giant Buddha of Cave 96 is completed.
• 698: A stele records the founding story of the caves.
• Early 11th century: The Library Cave is sealed.
• 1900: Wang Yuanlu discovers the Library Cave.
• 1907–1908: Aurel Stein and Paul Pelliot acquire large numbers of manuscripts.
• 1987: The Mogao Caves are inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

The Mogao Caves preserve an unbroken record of Buddhist art over about a thousand years, from a hermit’s cell in 366 to the Mongol era. They show how ideas, styles and faiths travelled along the Silk Road and blended with Chinese traditions, and their manuscripts transformed the study of medieval Asia.