The Mogao Caves Dunhuang China Previous | Home | Next

All content copyright © 2004 Mon-Photo.Com All rights reserved

The Mogao Caves form a system of 492 temples near Dunhuang, in Gansu province, China. They are also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, the Mogao Grottoes or the Caves of Dunhuang.
Local legend says that in AD 366 the Buddhist monk Lo-tsun had a vision of a thousand Buddhas and conviced a wealthy Silk Road pilgrim to fund the first of the temples. The temples eventually grew to number more than a thousand. From the fourth until the fourteenth century, Buddhist monks at Dunhuang collected scriptures from the west, and many pilgrims passed through the area, painting murals inside the caves. The murals cover 450,000 square feet (42,000 m²).
The caves were abandoned in the fourteenth century.
The Mogao Caves are the best known of the Chinese Buddhist grottoes, and along with Longmen and Yungang are one of the three famous
ancient sculptural sites of China.