At Yungang Grottoes, modern Chinese still have a chance to worship emperors from 1,500 years ago as many Buddha statues had been made with them as a prototype.

With similar looks but bigger stature, these "emperor-buddhas", each measuring 13 meters tall, solemnly occupied the first five caves of Yungang Grottoes to remind visitors of Buddhism's first heyday in China.

Although Buddhism began to enter China since the Western Han Dynasty around 2 BC, the religion had never got popular due to constant war chaos and the lack of support from ruling classes within the following 400 years.

When nomadic Xianbei people, the ethnic minority group from northern China, established the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-584), its emperors viewed Buddhism as a convenient means to expand their kingdom and to conquer the vast land inhabited by the majority Han People. After labeling Buddhism as the state religion, they promised the construction of the Yungang Grottoes at state expense to demonstrate their solid belief in Buddhism.

However, while the first state-funded Buddha grotto project was started in the then capital of Pingcheng, present day Datong in Shanxi Province, program director Monk Tan Yao was required to cast five statues looking the same as the five Xianbei emperors who had contributed to the establishment of Northern Wei Dynasty. This anecdote has been written into the book "History of Wei", revealing a prevailing concept in feudal China: the Emperor is God.

Between 453 and 523, nearly 40,000 craftsmen joined the massive royal project and carved out 50,000 Buddha statues and 53 grottoes on a 1-kilometer cliff to the south of Wuzhou Mountain.

Compared with Mogao and Longmen Grottoes in Gansu and Henan provinces respectively, the Yungang Grottoes is the only one accomplished within one dynasty and represents Chinese people's first large-scale assimilation of Buddhist culture.

Judging from the early work in Yungang, scholars believed that Chinese craftsmen borrowed a lot from western carving skills in the very beginning. Technically named Gandhara, these skills were originally created by ancient Indian artists who combined Buddhist carving art with the Greek culture brought into central Asia by Alexander the Great during the Crusade around the 4th century BC.

After Buddhism and Gandhara art made their way into China through the Silk Road, Chinese artists responsible for the carving work in Yungang combined it again with indigenous Chinese culture. Normally the later the carvings were made, the more Chinese elements they had.

For instance, inside the above-mentioned first five caves where "emperor-buddhas" were situated, visitors could see a variety of decorations from Indian golden-winged birds, Persian acanthus and Greek columns to Chinese balustrades.

In Cave 20, a giant Buddha sitting in the open has been taken as a typical work done in the earlier stage, as all details from his facial appearances to the dressing style bear strong resemblance to the then people living in the northwest of India, the north of Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Given the Northern Wei Dynasty was established by the nomadic Xianbei ethnic group, the early carvings in Yungang also revealed ethnic culture in northern China. From grottoes' interior decoration, visitors could find lots of forest animals and plants barely seen in orthodox Buddhist carvings, such as deer, tigers, birds and birches.

Later on, while the Xianbei people gradually expanded their territory to the south, Gandhara culture and their own ethnic culture eventually gave way to the Han culture represented by the Han people.

Such a change reflected well on the dressing style of later Buddha statues. In ample gowns and loose girdles, Buddhas no longer bared their right shoulders. Instead, they wore long pleated skirts and flowing drapes like garments of the then high-ranking Han officials.

By 494 AD, when the Northern Wei Dynasty moved its capital from Datong to Luoyang, the center of Han culture, only a small number of officials were left behind to supervise the construction project. Restrained by limited human and financial resources, however, many caves remained empty until craftsmen of Tang Dynasty (618-907) filled them up.

Ever since then, Datong, the bustling Buddhist cultural center some 1,500 years ago, gradually faded into a small city more well known for its coal production. In 2001, Yungang Grottoes was listed as a world cultural heritage by the United Nations. A rank of scholars, artists and architects swarmed onto the Wuzhou Mountain, about 16 kilometers from Datong.

Piles of works have been published, calling Yungang a live evidence of Chinese people's assimilation toward foreign culture and the culture of ethnic minorities. Apart from Buddha carvings, researchers also found valuable resources for the study of ancient Chinese music and dancing art.

Right now, a major concern shared by many researchers is the environmental pollution caused by coal exploitation and consumption in nearby Datong City.

Researcher Huang Jizhong of the Yungang Grottoes Study Center confirmed the efflorescence of Buddha carvings has become increasingly serious. Effective measures must be taken immediately, he said. 

(Xinhua News Agency June 11, 2004)