The Research Of Shui Liandong Grottos In Wu Shan County At Northern Zhou Dynasty

Shui lian grottos situated in Wushan county to the northwest of Tianshui city, which consists with four units:Lashao temple,Xiansheng pond,thousand Buddha cave and Shuilian cave, mainly reflects Chinese Buddhist grottos'art belonged to Northern Zhou dynasty. Shuilian grottos is not large in scale, or like any other grottos in Gansu such as Maogao grottos,Maji grottos and Binglin grottos, which preserved the Buddhist art from all different dynasties. However, Shui lian grotto only has sculptures and murals form Northern Zhou dynasty and a few pieces belonged to Song dynasty and Yuan Dynasty.With the research of the history background of Wushan Shui lian grottos, this treatise list all the dynasties that had governed Wushan and had new cave built or restored in Shui lian grottos; Analyze the reason of its flourish in Northern Zhou dynasty from several aspects like political economic and psychological; Besides from researching the sculpturing features of Shui lian grottos, and analyzing the reason of its unique sculpting style, meanwhile a comparison will be made of caves in Northern Zhou dynasty between Shui lian grottos and Maiji grottos,Xumi Shan grottos in Guyuan, from the grottos's form, sculpturing theme and murals'content to detect the Buddhist grottos'art in Northern Zhou dynasty. With the comparison the outstanding Northern Zhou Buddhist art in Shuilian grottos will be shown.