Fahua Temple Grottoes - China Travel

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Fahua Temple, formerly known as Sleeping Buddha Temple, is famous for its grotto art. The Fahua Temple Grottoes is a group of grottoes at the southern tip of my country, located in Xiaotaohua Village, 5 kilometers east of Anning City. On the red sandstone steep cliff on the west side of Luoyang Mountain, there are grotto carvings from the Dali Kingdom era. In the flat part of the forest on the mountainside, there is the ruins of the Fahua Temple built in the Tang Dynasty. The numerous Buddha statues and inscriptions in the caves here have high artistic appreciation value. Here, the forests are lush and green, the birds are singing, the cave springs are deep and deep, and the rock walls are cut. On the rock wall, there are ancient grottoes dotted with chess pieces, and there are many carved stone Buddhas in the grottoes, which are of different shapes and lifelike. It is one of the few grotto arts in ancient minority areas in my country.

On the east cliff, there are 3 grottoes on the right and 19 grottoes on the left, with a total of 22 niches. The second cave on the right is larger and slightly lower. There are statues of Bodhisattvas carved in the second cave, all of them wear flower crowns, shoulder-length cassocks, and there are two layers of light circles on the back. The upper ring is peach-shaped and pressed on the lower ring. The slightly higher layer of the halo is Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, who sits on a lotus flower in knots; the other layer is Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. On the upper left of the Guanyin Bodhisattva niche, there is still a cave, only 0.5 meters high, with a statue of the Bodhisattva inside. Cave 19 on the left is located slightly higher, and there are 18 Arhats carved on the inside, so people also call this cliff the Arhat Cliff.

Walking from the east cliff to the south cliff along the mountain path, there are two grottoes adjacent to each other on the way, in which there are engraved pictures of Sakyamuni Buddha's asceticism, with his right robe and left bare, his hands hugging his knees, and he bowed his head in meditation.

Going southwest for tens of meters, there are four grottoes on the rock wall with a slightly higher terrain, three of which are empty, and in the larger one, there is a carved sleeping Buddha. The Sleeping Buddha is 4.25 meters long, 1 meter high, full of heaven, with a straight nose and square mouth, ears hanging from the shoulders, curly hair like beads, full body cassock, bare chest and bare feet, with his right hand resting on the back of his head, sleeping quietly on a stone pillow, with his head facing south and east , half asleep with bent arms, with a serene expression. The technique of carving the Sleeping Buddha is exquisite, simple and generous, and the knife technique is exquisite, which is comparable to that of the Reclining Buddha in the western suburbs of Beijing. Every sunny day, when the sun rises in the east, the morning light sprinkles on the reclining Buddha, shining golden light, showing the Buddha's kindness and detachment.