Chapter 1098 – Mogao Cave

“Brother Zhuang, do you want me to go teach him a lesson?”

Peng Fei was feeling that this trip was relatively uneventful, after seeing Zhongchuan, he couldn’t help but feel a little itchy in his hands and feet, especially after seeing Zhongchuan next to another nodding interpreter, which made Comrade Peng Fei extremely unhappy, he was most unaccustomed to seeing these foreigners who ran to China and pretended to be a great master with money.

“Forget it! You kid don’t make trouble, play for a day today, tomorrow we have to start working.”

Zhuang Rui waved his hand to stop Peng Fei, other people admire Chinese culture, where to travel is the freedom of others, but this Zhongchuan is really and their own quite destiny, from Xi’an to Dunhuang, has encountered three times in a row.

“Look at that guy, he doesn’t look like a good thing, maybe he came to China for selfish artifacts!” Peng Fei muttered under his breath, parked his car and pushed the door down.

Although Dunhuang is located in the middle of nowhere, but as a world-famous tourist attraction, Mogao Grottoes in front of the crowd crowded, everywhere is holding a small flag wearing a visor tour group, if it is not Peng Fei sharp eyes, really can not see the Nakagawa, but this get off the car work, Nakagawa crowded in the crowd do not know where to end.

China has a total of four major Buddhist culture characterized by giant grottoes, respectively, Dunhuang – Mogao Grottoes, Datong – Yungang Grottoes, Luoyang – Longmen Grottoes, Tianshui – Maijishan Grottoes, which Longmen Grottoes and Mogao Grottoes is the most famous, and Mogao Grottoes is the four major The Mogao Grottoes are one of the four largest and best preserved grottoes in existence.

Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes was built in 366 A.D., until the Qing Dynasty of 1,500 years, in the three-mile-long Mingsha Mountain wall, densely built more than four hundred and eighty caves, up and down the arrangement of the five layers, heights of the staggered, lined up, in the shape of a beehive like a dovecote, standing hundreds of meters away from Mogao Grottoes to watch, it looks exceptionally spectacular.

All the grottoes, all covered with colorful statues of Buddha and Buddhist stories as the theme of the murals, colorful Buddha statues a total of more than two thousand bodies, the largest one up to thirty-three meters high, the murals of the high skill, the number of amazing, if a party connected, can be lined up into a gallery of more than fifty miles long.

“Zhuang Rui, put the cameras in the car! Inside the Mogao Caves is not allowed to carry cameras inside, if you are interested in those paintings and statues of Buddha falling off, I can find someone to ask you for a complete collection of Mogao Caves image albums later.”

Seeing Zhuang Rui hanging a camera around his neck, Dr. Ren who came down from another car reminded him that due to the flash of all kinds of cameras which are very destructive to the cultural relics, it is forbidden to bring a camera into this attraction.

Professor Meng once in the name of Beijing University Institute of Archaeology, joint Dunhuang Institute of Cultural Heritage, specifically for the breathing of carbon dioxide will produce potential damage to the murals, carried out a related research project, as a relatively early student to follow Professor Meng, Dr. Ren is not the first time to come here, and the Mogao Caves has a fairly deep research.

Along with the crowd of tourists, Zhuang Rui and others also stepped into the interior of the Mogao Caves, they entered the southern part of the Mogao Caves, where there are a total of 487 caves, which have murals or statues, after entering the first cave, Zhuang Rui was attracted by the rock walls and the head of those exquisite stone carvings.

Looking around the cave and the top of the cave, everywhere is painted with Buddha, Kabuki, fairies, almost every space within the grotto, there are paintings of the existence of the grotto, after entering the grotto, Zhuang Rui as if he felt into the ancient gallery in general, everywhere is filled with a rich artistic atmosphere.

And visit those places of interest are different, here all the paintings and stone statues of Buddha, all exudes a kind of artistic beauty, colorful and various kinds of exquisite decorative patterns, seems to lead people into a grand and spectacular art gallery, every tiny place, all show the ancestors exquisite craft technology and artistic cultivation.

“Zhuang Rui, this is the Flying Sky, the Flying Sky advertisement we saw on CCTV is modeled after this.” Inside a grotto that was more than 30 meters high, Dr. Ren saw Zhuang Rui looking up at the dome and spoke out to introduce him.

Flying sky is the god serving Buddha and Emperor Shi Tian, can sing and dance, in this grotto wall, everywhere carved with flying sky pattern, a little in the boundless vast universe floating, some hold lotus buds, straight to the clouds, some from the air swooping down, the potential is like a shooting star, some through the heavy buildings and highways, just like a swimming dragon; some with the wind roaming roll, leisurely and at ease.

Ancient painters, with that peculiar meandering long lines, stretching and harmonious interest, presented to people a beautiful and ethereal imaginary world, bright colors, flying lines, presenting people with a kind of flaunting power, so that Zhuang Rui has a kind of in the desert wilderness longitudinal riding wildly in the heart of the passion to reverberate.

“The information in the movie and television, not as good as what you see with your own eyes ah!”

Zhuang Rui retracted his gaze at the dome, just now he used his aura to feel the grotto in the body, that an exquisite brushstroke, a beautiful nymphs flow of light, sash fluttering, in the aura sensation seems to come to life, so that Zhuang Rui mesmerized, the heart shocked, as if the soul is with the dance with the trembling up.

Even Peng Fei, who couldn’t find the slightest bit of art cells in his body, was also attracted by these exquisite portraits, and opened his mouth to say dumbly, “Brother Zhuang, as I look at these murals, how come they seem to be alive?”

“Well, Peng Fei, this shows that you have a Buddhist destiny, why don’t you just become a monk, as the saying goes, put down the butcher’s knife and become a Buddha on the ground!”

Feeling the distinctive grotto aura, Zhuang Rui in a good mood, smiling and Peng Fei joked, but this is also half-true, in the modern world, Peng Fei such a person has been considered to be a god of killing, being in this Buddhist heavy ground, perhaps can really dissolve a few points of the tyrannical atmosphere of his body.

“Hehehe, do they accept the Wine and Flesh Monk?” Peng Fei smiled at his words, he himself was the Lord who was not afraid of the sky and the earth, even in this Buddhist solemn place, it could only make him lose his mind slightly.

“You! Less nonsense in this place.”

Zhuang Rui shook his head, walked out of this grotto, and continued to tour, this time he put his attention on those different forms of Buddha carvings within the grotto above.

Due to the Sui and Tang dynasties is the heyday of the development of Mogao Caves, Mogao Caves within the Buddha carving, but also by the Sui and Tang dynasties Buddhist culture, most of the statues for the round molding, statues modeling thick fullness, the characters of the physical fitness, dignified and serene look, style is simple and heavy.

Color sculpture for the Mogao Grottoes Buddha carving art of the main body, there are statues of Buddha, bodhisattva statues, disciple statues and the heavenly kings, vajra, Rex a variety of color sculpture statues, the form of rich and colorful, round molding, plastic, shadow molding, good industry molding can be seen here, the highest as high as 34.5 meters, the smallest of only about 2 centimeters, the subject matter of the richness and craftsmanship of the mastery of the Museum of Buddhist color sculpture.

When he walked to Grotto No. 16, Dr. Ren stopped and pointed inside, “Zhuang Rui, this is the Cave of Sutras.”

“Those precious scriptures are hidden in here?”

Zhuang Rui used the flashlight he had with him and shone it inside, the interior wall of that square cave, which was only 2.6 meters in length and width and 3 meters in height, was painted with images of bodhi trees, bhikkhunis, etc. There was a low altar in the style of a Zen bed, on which the seated figure of a monk Hong discernment was portrayed, and as for the scriptures, there was not a single volume left.

And in more than a century ago, Wang Taoist inadvertently opened this hidden scripture cave, which stored from the 4th century to the 11th century (i.e., the 16th country to the Northern Song Dynasty) of the successive generations of documents and paper paintings, silk paintings, embroidery and other cultural relics of more than 50,000 pieces, but now the domestic, almost ten does not exist.

Later generations of archaeologists deduced that the cave should be in the 11th century, Mogao Grottoes monks in order to avoid the Western Xia army, in preparation for the escape of the closed, the unearthed documents are mostly written, a small number of engraved, especially precious, and there are ancient Tibetan, Sanskrit, Qi Luwen, Sutra, Hotan, migratory birds, tortoise and other texts, passed down to the present day, many of which have been orphaned and the extinct book.

For the discoverer of the Cave of Tibetan scriptures, Wang Daoshi, although the later generations of his evaluation is mixed, but Zhuang Rui always think he is the sinner of this civilization loss, his so-called will be sold for the silver used to repair the Mogao Grottoes of the move, not in the least can not atone for the loss of these precious cultural relics for his behavior.

Perhaps many friends will say that Taoist Wang was dedicated to public service, and the silver sold to foreigners was not used for private enjoyment, but rather a life of poverty, and some will say that if Taoist Wang had not sold those things, perhaps these objects would have been destroyed in the subsequent war.

But these friends do not know, Mogao Grottoes in the Yuan Dynasty has been very little known, hundreds of years, basically preserved the original appearance, no one even knew that there are preserved precious rare Buddhist scriptures scrolls.

The Qing Dynasty and the Nationalist Government at that time could not have taken the Mogao Grottoes into account, that is to say, if Taoist Wang had not opened up the Cave of the Sutras, these precious cultural relics would most probably not have been discovered until today, and these precious cultural relics belonging to China would have been preserved in good condition.

And Wang Daoshi in the government at the time gave attention to the most valuable most of the precious scrolls of cultural relics, just with 700 silver dollars, sold to the British archaeologist Stein 24 boxes of writing, 5 boxes of art and 570 paragraphs of Dunhuang literature.

Subsequently, the French archaeologist Bercy with 600 silver dollars, acquired more than 10,000 pieces of Dunhuang documents that can be called the cream of the crop, and the last remaining precious artifacts were sold by Wang Daoshi to the Japanese explorers Yoshikawa Koichiro and Tangerine Ruichao.

As a result, more than 50,000 pieces of Cangjing Cave documents found in 1900, only 8,757 pieces were eventually collected in the current National Library of China, not as much as half of the British Museum, so in Zhuang Rui’s heart, Wang Daoshi is the main culprit in the loss of Dunhuang culture.