Maijishan Grottoes - History

History

Maijishan has an especially interesting location as it is located close to the E-W route that connected Xi'an with Lanzhou and eventually Dunhuang, as well as the route that veers off to the south that connected (and still connects) Xi'an with Chengdu in Sichuan and regions as far south as India. This crossroads location is interesting as several of the sculptures in Maijishan that appear around the 6th Century, appear to have Indian—and even SE Asian—features that could have come north via these N-S routes. The earliest artistic influence came, however, from the northwest, through Central Asia along the Silk Road. Later, during the Sung and Ming Dynasties, as the caves were renovated and repaired, the influences came from central and eastern China and the sculpture is more distinctly Chinese.

Cave shrines in China probably served two purposes: originally, before Buddhism came to China, they may have been used as local shrines to worship one's ancestors or various nature deities. With the coming of Buddhism to China, however, influenced by the long tradition of cave shrines from India (such as Ajanta) and Central Asia (primarily Afghanistan), they became part of China's religious architecture.

Buddhism in this part of China spread through the support of the Northern Liang (北凉), which was the last of the "16 Kingdoms" that existed from 304-439 CE—a collection of numerous short-lived sovereign states in China. The Northern Liang were Xiongnu, "barbarians". It was during their rule that cave shrines first appeared in Gansu Province, the two most famous sites being Tiandishan ("Celestial Ladder Mountain") south of their capital at Yongcheng, and Wenshushan ("Manjusri's Mountain" ), halfway between Yongcheng and Dunhuang. Maijishan was most likely started during this wave of religious enthusiasm.

Sometime between 420 and 422 CE, a monk by the name of Tanhung arrived at Maijishan and proceeded to build a small monastic community. One of the legends is that he had previously been living in Chang'an but had fled to Maijishan when the city was invaded by the Sung army. Within a few years he was joined by another senior monk, Xuangao, who brought 100 followers to the mountain. Both are recorded in a book entitled Memoirs of Eminent Monks; eventually their community grew to 300 members. Xuangao later moved to the court of the local king where he remained until its conquest by the Northern Wei, when he, together with all the other inhabitants of the court, were forced to migrate and settle in the Wei capital. He died in 444 during a period of Buddhist persecution. Tanhung also left Maijishan during this period and travelled south, to somewhere in Cochin China, when in approximately 455, he burned himself to death.

How the original community was organized or looked, we don't know. "Nor is there any evidence to show whether the settlement they founded was destroyed and its members scattered in the suppression of 444 and the ensuring years, or whether it was saved by its remoteness to become a heaven of refuse, as was to happen on several later occasions in the history of Maijishan".

The Wei Dynasty was good to Maijishan and the grottoes existence close to the Wei capital city of Loyang and the main road west brought the site recognition and, most likely, support. The earliest dated inscription is from 502, and records the excavation of what is now identified as Cave 115. Other inscriptions record the continued expansion of the grottoes, as works were dedicated by those with the financial means to do so.