The Study On 127 Cave Of The Majishan Grottoes

In the year of 500AD,Chang'an became the political,economic and cultural center of the West Wei dynasty as the North Wei dynasty was divided into the West Wei and the East Wei.Therefore,QinZhou,the hinterland of the West Wei regime,became a stronghold adjoining Longyou,Bashu and the West.On the other hand,Qinzhou was always an important area for the spread of Buddhism dating back to the Tsin Dynasty.There were lots of famous monks,such as Boyuan,Zhufahu,Xuangao etc,propagating the Dhamma here.Fortunately,The monkery of Chang'an chaired by DaoAn and Kumarajiva has given a significance push to the growth of Buddhism in Qinzhou as well.Qinzhou is home to many Chinese minorities in the Northern and Southern Dynasties so that the living habits here are various,which actually contributes to the prosperity of local Buddhism.Therefore,depending on beautiful environment and convenient traffic,the Maijishan grottoes gradually turned into an vital center of Buddhism.The Maijishan Grottoes reaches her three peak stages of cave digging in the North Wei Dynasty,the West Wei dynasty and the North Zhou dynasty during the Northern dynasties and the West Wei Dynasty has the closest relationship with the royal.In addition,thanks to the arrival of Queen Yi Fo,who was sent here as a Buddhist nun because of the lost of standing at West Wei's royal court.The Maijishan Grottoes attain her opportunity of a new peek stage again after suffering years of chaos caused by war since the late years of the North Wei Dynasty.According to the comprehensive analyses and the reference to plenty relative documents,the paper holds the opinion that the 127 cave of the Maijishan Grottoes was completed by the district magistrate of Qinzhou,King Wu Du in the early years of the West Wei dynasty to commemorate his mother,Queen Yi Fo.Both the structure of the cave and the characteristics of the statues inside show a quite different style,the contents of the frescoes does as well,which reflects the features of Buddhist statue in temporal Chang'an and the east region in the South Dynasties on the basics of local characteristics of art.As a result,the 127 cave of the Maijishan Grottoes shows great value of researching the development of Buddhist thoughts and art of midland even northwestern region in the late years of the North Dynasties.As a consequence of the effects caused by new caves of the cave temple in eastern area,the structure of the 127 cave looks like a drapery.This new combination of Chinese traditional architectural structure and goreign Buddhist grottoes plays a significant role in the growth of the Buddhist grottoes in the North Dynasties.Furthermore,the splendid frecoes in the 127 cave give expression to the main Buddhist thought,especially the frescoes of paradise and inferno,to a great extent,cover the shortage of the development and spread of folk Buddhism in Central Plains.For example,the story of Shanzi and the story of the young prince feeding a tiger embody both the worship of Sakyamuni and the filial duty and royalty to emperors in traditional Chinese values.The paper not only explained the strutures of the cave and the contents of statues and frescoes but also researched the growth of the Buddhist thoughts the cave reflects,the origin of Buddhist images,its artistic techniques of the statues and frescoes,the relationship with Chinese traditional cultures.Besides,the relationship of the cave and other arts of statue has been analysedThe last part of the paper gives a new opinion after roundly analyzing historic background,the artistic features and rebuilding period of the sculptures of the Song Dynasty,the statue tablets of the North Wei Dynasty and the molded statues in the 127 cave.