Chapter 12 Chapter 12 Buddha Treasures of the Western Regions - Kucha Grottoes

Qiuci is a relatively powerful branch of the Western Regions and North Roads in my country during the Western Han Dynasty. It crossed Congling (Pamirs) to go south to India and west to Central Asia. It was a necessary place for cultural exchanges between China and the West.Therefore, when Buddhism arose in India and continued to spread outward, the branch that spread from north to east first arrived in Kucha, and gradually integrated with the local society, economy, and culture, forming the unique Kucha Grotto Art. The so-called Kucha Grottoes include all the grottoes located in the territory of the ancient Kucha Kingdom.According to statistics, there are 236 Kizil Grottoes, eight Taitaier Grottoes, eight Wemba Grottoes, six Yekeelik Grottoes in Baicheng County, 99 Kumshangla Grottoes in Kuqa County, Senmu Grottoes, etc. There are 52 Semu Grottoes, 46 Kizilduoha Grottoes, 32 Mazaboha Grottoes, and 19 Tuohulak Eken Grottoes in Xinhe County, totaling about 500 in nine places.Among them, Kizil Grottoes and Kumutula Grottoes are the most representative and local features.

The Kizil Grottoes are located 67 kilometers southeast of Baicheng.In the north is the Mingwudage Mountain with staggered cliffs, and in the south is the ochre-colored Qeldage Mountain. The Thousand Drops Spring flows from the Suget Valley from north to south, and flows into the Muzhati River after passing through an alluvial fan about 2 kilometers long. .The grottoes excavated on the cliffs of Mingwu Dage Mountain are scattered in height and in different sizes, stretching indistinctly, and as long as more than 3,000 meters.According to the existing numbers, there are 236 caves in total, 80 of which have murals.The distribution is: 82 in the west of the valley, 54 in the inner valley, 65 in the east of the valley, and 35 in the back mountain area.According to the analysis of shape combination, mural content and style, it can be roughly divided into four types: central pillar cave, large statue cave, monk's room cave and square cave.

Central column cave.Generally, it consists of three parts: the main chamber, the back chamber, and the central column; most of the caves with the front chamber have not been preserved to this day.The plane of the main room is square or rectangular, with a coupon roof, where the front, left, and right walls meet the top, and some are bounded by eaves, with murals on the walls; the upper part of the front wall is curved, with statues and paintings on the walls.The plane of the back room is mostly rectangular, lower and narrower, with a vaulted roof, and there are corridors on the left and right connecting with the main room. There is a platform in front of the back wall.The plane of the center column is almost square, the front wall is the front wall of the main room, and the back wall is the front wall of the back room. There are often niches for statues or paintings, which are the main part of the center column cave.

Big elephant cave.Generally, there is no front room, only the main room, the back room, and the central column.The large statues stand on the front wall of the main room.This type of grotto is actually a kind of central pillar grotto, which is slightly different, but a large standing statue is prominently arranged on the front wall of the main room, and the area of ​​the back room is enlarged. Monk's cave.Generally, it consists of two parts. One is the doorway with a long strip shape, flat top or coupon roof, and a short corridor is opened on the left or right side behind the doorway; the other is the main room after entering the corridor. A stove is set on one side of the mouth, a low pit is set on the opposite side of the stove, and a window is opened in the middle of the front wall of the main room.

Square cave.There is generally an anterior chamber, but there are very few extant ones.The main chamber is square or rectangular, with a door in the middle of the front wall, or a door and a window on one side of the front wall.In the middle of the main room, there is a Buddhist altar with statues on it, but most of them do not exist now.The wall is divided into columns and grids to paint continuous biography of Buddha.Some main chambers have no altar, but the back wall is mostly painted with paintings centered on Bodhisattvas or eminent monks (this may be a lecture hall), or there are niches on the back wall to place seated statues, and the left and right walls are painted with the biography of karma Buddha.In addition, there are some small caves made in various situations.

The above four types of caves can be roughly divided into three stages according to their characteristics.The first stage was around 310-350, represented by grottoes 6, 13, 38, 47, and 80 in the west of the valley.The second stage was around 395-465, with caves 14, 17, 35, 36, 39, 49, and 77 in the west of the valley, caves 92, 104, 118, and 119 in the inner valley, and caves 139 and 171 in the east of the valley. No. Grotto is the representative.The third stage is around 545-685, which can be found in grottoes 8 and 70 in the west of the valley, grottoes 107A and 107B in the inner valley, grottoes 148, 180, 182, 185, 187, 190, and 197 in the east of the valley, and in the back mountain area. Grottoes 201 and 234 are representatives.The first and second stages are the occurrence period and peak period of the Kizil Grottoes, and the third stage is the continuation period. Around the middle of the 8th century, some caves began to be abandoned.

The Kumutula Grottoes are about 30 kilometers southwest of Kuqa City.After passing through the Kizil Grottoes, the Weigan River (that is, the Muzhati River) passes through the mountains, walks through narrow valleys, reaches Kumutula, touches the cliff in the east, and turns south to flow out of the mountain.Among the cliffs on the east bank of the river bend, the Kumutula Grottoes are lined up in rows from north to south, extending four miles away.According to the current numbering, there are a total of 112 caves, of which more than 40 have murals.The distribution is as follows: 32 caves in the southern valley mouth area, which are relatively scattered; the northern caves are more concentrated, but are divided into three by the small valley from east to west: 41 caves in the southern valley area, 18 caves in the inner valley area, and 22 caves in the northern valley area.

The Kumutula Grottoes Group is later than the Kizil Grottoes Group, and its shape has not changed much except for a few caves with some characteristics.Most of the statues in the cave have not been preserved, so there is no way to study them.Based on the analysis of the murals in the existing caves, the caves can basically be divided into three types: Kizil, Dunhuang, and Bezeklik. Kizil type.The Kumtula Grottoes are close to the Kizil Grottoes and are located in the same cultural area, and most of the caves were excavated later than the Kizil Grottoes. Therefore, there are about 20 caves that inherit the style of the Kizil Grottoes, accounting for More than 1/2 of the existing caves with murals, of which caves 43 and 46 are the most typical.Generally speaking, the murals in Kizil caves have tended to decline.

Dunhuang type.It refers to a group of caves formed under the influence of Dunhuang murals.The murals in the cave have the characteristics of Central Plains paintings, and the content and painting methods are different from the Kizil type.According to the statistics of the characteristics of the existing relics, such caves include Nos. 4, 11-17, 36, 42, 45, 61, 66, 71, 75, etc., about 20 caves, mostly distributed in the lower layer of the cliff, near the river beach, with obvious locations and convenient transportation. It is convenient and extremely convenient for monks to perform meritorious deeds.

Bezeklik type.According to the observations of the existing murals in caves 9 and 38, the content is mainly about the tall and tall Buddha, and the style is warm red tone and uniform iron line drawing, showing the unique artistic atmosphere of Gaochang area.In addition, there is a painting method similar to line drawing, and the portraits mostly show Uighur supporters. The characteristics of the Kucha Grottoes are roughly as follows: First, the shape and basic structure of most representative caves are composed of a main room, a back room, a central tower column, and two corridors, which have remained unchanged for hundreds of years and have remained the same across thousands of miles.The formation of this feature, in addition to the social and political factors at that time, is mainly related to the local cliff structure and cave formation.The cliffs in this area are mostly loose sandstone, which requires less labor and has quick results, but it is easy to collapse.Therefore, when digging caves, it is necessary to open more rooms, using the basic principle of small space and central column.The central tower column can not only support the cave chamber to prevent collapse, but also separate the front and back chambers for a rational layout, and more importantly, it can meet the needs of monks and nuns who worship the Buddha right-handedly.

Second, there are many large statue caves and sculptures of large Buddhas dug in the grottoes, such as six Kizil Caves, two Senmusham Caves, four Kumtura Caves, and four Kizil Duoha Caves.This phenomenon continued until Xuanzang's mission to the Western Regions in the early Tang Dynasty. Thirdly, the subject matter of grotto murals, the story of the Buddha occupies a lot of space, some are as long as 60 pieces, and the most common one is the picture of the Buddha's teaching.The stories of the biography of Buddha and the story of Buddha Jataka almost occupy most of the surface of the "Kuicha-style" Buddhist cave.Among them, the vertical wall is mainly based on the stories of Buddha's biography, and the wall on the top of the cave is mainly based on the stories of Buddha's life.On the surface of a grotto, there are some paintings with more than a hundred stories of Buddha Jataka, which is unprecedented in grotto murals in other parts of my country.Such emphasis on accumulating karma and seeking self-liberation (becoming a Buddha) shows that Kucha Buddhism still has the characteristics of early Buddhism and Theravada Buddhism.From the perspective of the mural style, the moving artistic image is a major feature of the murals in the Kucha Grottoes. Fourth, mural decoration art is unique.The relationship between the "bones" of the architectural structure in the painting and the "flesh and blood" formed by the murals is a characteristic of the organic combination of the Kucha-style Buddhist cave architecture and murals.The combination of the lines of "curved iron pansi" and the concave-convex smudging method in the painting technique is also rare or absent in mural paintings in other regions of my country. Mahayana Buddha statues have appeared in the early Kizil grottoes.For example, in the No. 38 central column cave in the first stage, there are standing Buddhist niches on both sides of the front wall of the main room; in the No. 47 large statue cave, there are rows of Buddha statues.In the second stage, there are two central pillar caves, No. 27 and No. 99, the thousand-Buddha niches on the left and right walls of the main room; No. 17 central pillar cave, the murals of Lusana Buddha on the left corridor of the back room, etc.It shows that before Kumarajiva preached Mahayana Buddhism and after traveling eastward, there were images of Mahayana Buddhism in the Kizil Grottoes. After the middle of the 16th century, Mahayana Buddhism in Kucha seems to have become more prevalent, and the theme of Pure Land Change has already appeared in the murals of the Kumutura Grottoes. The monastery cave in the Kucha Grottoes.In the compiled grottoes in Kizil, there are groups of temples. According to the analysis of existing materials, there are at least seven groups.That is, caves 2-19, caves 27-43, caves 96-101, caves 175-180, caves 181-191, caves 202-219, etc.The characteristics of these groups of caves are that the caves in the same group are close to each other, and there are natural boundaries at both ends to keep a large distance from the caves outside the group; the caves in the same group are related in many ways; There are five Buddhist halls and one strip-shaped cave; each group has a central Buddhist hall, which is located in the center, tall in shape, special in structure, exquisite in decoration and exquisite in murals.It can be seen from this that each group of caves is a closed unit.It has many similarities with the temple system of the Buddha's time recorded in Vinaya.Therefore, it seems that a group of caves with five Buddhist halls may be a five-hall monastery.The origin of this kind of monastery can be found in the documents about Buddhist pagodas and Buddhist temples in India. These combined caves or combined temples can be divided into two phases, the former and the latter, in terms of their cave structure, type, and mural subject matter.The early period was around the 5th and 6th centuries, and each group of monasteries had five Buddhist halls, one lecture hall, two miscellaneous rooms, one strip-shaped cave, several monks' rooms and some ruined caves.In the later period, around the seventh and eighth centuries, each group of monasteries has five Buddhist halls and one strip-shaped cave, and there are no lecture halls, monks' rooms and residual caves.It can be seen that the monastery caves in the early stage can carry out general Buddhist activities, and the temple caves in the later period can hold other activities besides worshiping Buddha. The monastery caves that appeared in the Kizil Grottoes also have similar situations in the caves in other places in Kucha.Some scholars pointed out: "The ruins of the large temple near the Senmusim Grottoes and the combination of caves with multiple functions in the Kizil Duoha Grottoes indicate that they were the local temples and pagoda temples at that time." Or the central pillar cave as the center, forming five areas or five groups of caves including central pillar caves, square caves, monk's room caves and other combinations.This reminds us of the situation in which the temples in the Kuyi Kingdom are divided into five temples, including the monk temple, the nun temple, and the Wangxin temple, as recorded in the "Bhikkhuni Precepts and Prefaces" in Volume 11 of "Chu San Zang Ji Ji Ji".Although each other may be a numerical coincidence, it can explain that in the Qiuci Grottoes, the combined layout of the caves has its specific significance. The trajectory of the evolution of the Kucha Grottoes.The Kizil Grottoes belong to the early Kucha Grottoes, with an Indian style; the Kumutula Grottoes belong to the late Kucha Grottoes, with the Han and Tang styles of the Central Plains, and are quite developed.Although there are obvious differences between the two, they still have some inheritance. First, the evolution of the Sengfang Grottoes.The Kizil Monk’s Grotto was first dug in the 4th century.In the fifth and sixth centuries, some monastery caves were eliminated one after another.In the 7th and 8th centuries, monks' houses and grottoes were no longer built. Second, the evolution of mural subject matter.The early paintings of the Kizil Grottoes mostly depicted the stories of Buddha's life and Buddha's walk in rhombic grids.In the middle period, Lingge Thousand Buddhas and Lingge Pagoda Thousand Buddhas appeared, and then gradually evolved into simple Thousand Buddhas, forming the late Thousand Buddhas. Third, the evolution of the central column cave.In the early central column caves, the plane of the main chamber is as wide as the rear corridor, or slightly wider than the rear corridor; the roofs of the main chamber are all vertical vaults; there is no front room and rear chamber, and the rear corridor is as high as the left and right corridors; the front of the central column A niche was chiseled, and there were no niches in the main room and the left and right corridors.From the mid-period onwards, the central column cave appeared with a back corridor wider than the plane of the main chamber; four sets of bucket roofs, flat chess domes, and dome roofs appeared on the roof of the main chamber; there were front and rear chambers, and the rear corridor was widened and heightened; The side walls of the main room and the back room and the left, right and back walls of the central column generally have small niches;In the late central pillar grottoes, there was a phenomenon of renovating the early monk's house grottoes, and the grottoes tended to be simplified.