Not as famous as these four caves, but it is the earliest cave to be excavated - Kizil Thousand Buddha Cave

We mentioned the Kumarajiva statue in front of the Kizil Thousand Buddha Cave above, so let’s talk about the cave in Baicheng now.

Many people know that there are four major caves in my country: Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes in Gansu, Yungang Grottoes in Shanxi, Longmen Grottoes in Henan and Maijishan Grottoes in Tianshui, Gansu. The Mogao Grottoes are the largest and most abundant Buddhist art site in the world; the Yungang Grottoes are known as the treasure house of ancient Chinese sculpture art; the Longmen Grottoes have a strong national religious color.

Longmen Grottoes

These caves all have innumerable characteristics and auras, but there is only one characteristic of the Kizil Cave, that is, when you mention its name, people who know a little about it will blurt out, "It is the grotto in the westernmost part of our country. Isn’t it?” In fact, it is the earliest grotto in my country, which was excavated around the 3rd century AD. Our inland was divided into the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the historical event in foreign countries was the change of Roman emperors; the caves gradually stopped in the 8th and 9th centuries AD. At this time, the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty was declining, and the conflict between the Western imperial power and the church intensified. They were busy destroying icons and dealing with God.

Buddhism began to spread to Xinjiang in the 1st century A.D. After 2 centuries, dignitaries or ordinary people began to dig caves on the cliffs; in the 4th century, Buddhism in Kucha Kingdom reached its peak, and began to build large-scale construction projects, gathering skilled craftsmen to dig or decorate Buddhist caves During the reign, many richly decorated and large-scale temples were built; in the 7th century, the royal palace was built like a temple.

To what extent does the Kucha Kingdom respect Buddhism? Every festival, various temples will carefully wrap the Buddha statues with precious brocades, and then enshrine them on colorful cars, pulling the Buddha statues slowly on the streets. Along the way, the nobles of the royal palace and ordinary people will take off their hats, put on new clothes, barefoot and hold flowers to welcome the Buddha statue. When the Buddha statue came, they all worshiped, burned incense and scattered flowers.

Don't think that the Kizil Grottoes have been built or developed for a long time and think that we have visited a lot of caves. Although it took 700 years, it only takes a moment to destroy it. Now there are 236 officially numbered caves, but most of the statues have been destroyed, and there are only 81 caves with exquisite murals.

Why was it so badly damaged? There are several reasons for this:

The first point is the war: According to the stele recorded in the third year of Kaiyuan (715) of the Tang Dynasty, which was broken in two under the pagoda of the Kizil Grottoes, it can be seen that in the early 8th century AD, this place was once a battlefield for breaking Turpan. It can be seen from a picture of a battle engraved in Cave 93 of the Kizil Grottoes that the lower part of the picture is also engraved with the words "Lai Junjun", which may be the name of a person, which is roughly the description of the battle by the soldiers at that time.

The second point is religious disputes: that is, Buddhism was not popular in the later period, and few people practiced and worshiped Buddha here, so tourists who came here to visit would wanton and wantonly write inscriptions on murals or sculptures.

The third point is the aggression of Western expeditions: In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, successive Western expeditions looted a large number of exquisite murals from the Kizil Grottoes.

The fourth point is natural causes: wind erosion, floods, earthquakes, etc. all cause damage to statues and murals.

Nowadays, from the perspective of cultural relics protection, we can only visit 6 grottoes as ordinary tourists. Although it is not enjoyable, it is also a direct way to understand the origin of Kucha Kingdom and Buddhism.

Most of the murals in the Kizil Grottoes are drawn in a diamond shape like the one shown in the picture below, mainly based on karmic stories, such as Cave 38, which depicts the story of Prince Mahasattva sacrificing himself to feed a tiger. Mahasattva is Sakyamuni previous life.

Another example is Cave 8, which depicts the past and present life of a monkey: the monkey offered honey to the Buddha, and the Buddha said there were worms in the honey, so the monkey took the worm out of the honey and offered it to the Buddha. At this time, the Buddha said that the honey was too thick, so the monkey added spring water to the honey to reduce the concentration of the honey, and offered the honey to the Buddha again. This time, the Buddha and his disciples drank the honey juice brought by the monkey. The so-called extreme joy begets sorrow, the monkey was so happy that he accidentally fell into the puddle and drowned. Because he served as a Buddhist in his previous life, he was born into a wealthy family and became a rich man in his next life.

The most distressing thing is the mural similar to the picture below. You may see that this mural is well preserved. The cassock on the left side of the Buddha statue is as red as we think, but it is not. From the 6th century to the 7th century AD, Buddhism reached its peak, and statues in caves were generally covered with gold powder or gold leaf. The cassock in this picture is pasted with gold. The red we see now is the weathered stone wall, and the gold leaf has been scraped away. What's more serious is that some murals have been pasted away in large areas. Only more than 10,000 square meters of murals are preserved in these existing caves.

Sometimes standing in front of the devastated caves, it is not difficult to imagine what the Thousand Buddha Caves experienced at that time, so if you have the opportunity, go and see this lonely grotto as soon as possible, because as the environment changes, it is really hard to say which day it will be. will be submerged in the long river of history.

If one day you set foot on the land of Xinjiang and browse the scenery of northern Xinjiang, then come to southern Xinjiang to feel the power of humanity, and leave the imprint of time in Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves in Baicheng.