Yungang Grottoes

The Yungang Grottoes are excellent examples of Buddhist cave art, dating from the 5th and 6th centuries. They are located near the city of Datong in the Chinese province of Shanxi. The site stretches about 1 kilometer from east to west, and holds 53 caves with 51,000 statues.

Yungang is a relic of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534) of the nomadic Toba people. They recruited 3,000 monks from along the Silk Route to turn Buddhism into their state religion.

The caves can be divided into 3 phases:
1 - Caves 16-20 (Five Caves of Tan Yao, where the Wei-rulers were depicted as living Buddhas).
2 - Caves 1, 2, 3, 5-13 (more varied and Chinese in concept).
3 - Caves 4, 14, 15, 20 and the rest (smaller caves).
During these phases, the 'foreign' Indian Buddhism turned into a Chinese folk religion.

In 494, the Wei moved their capital from Datong to Luoyang and the Yungang Grottoes slowly fell into decay. The caves used to be protected by wooden temple buildings, but most of them burnt down. Many of the artwork was stolen in the early 20th century and now resides in museums and private collections around the world.

Year	Decision	Comments
2001	Inscribed	Reasons for inscription

Visit October 2007

Dusty and dry Datong sees a fair number of western visitors due to its location relatively close to Beijing and because it's the first stop in China of the Transmongolian Express. This medium-sized city has a couple of sights, of which the Yungang Grottoes are the most worthwhile. Bus 3-2 plies the 15 km from the train station and the city center to the grottoes.

It's a bit difficult to see the carvings in their right chronological order. After entering, you end up in cave 6, which is one of the most brightly painted and represents the 'Chinese' phase. Even the ceilings are full of little details. The neighbouring caves also are colourful and lively, like early versions of the Dazu rock carvings.

Walking westwards, I arrived at the five caves of the first phase. These are huge, solemn Buddha statues looking out from a window on the second floor. When you walk into the cave, you only see their legs.

Finally, I walked back to the eastern caves (1-5). Be sure not to miss these ones. Especially Cave 3 is interesting, as it is the largest cave of all. There are only 2 statues inside, but you can walk inside and enjoy the play of sunlight and shade.

My visit lasted about 2 hours, enough to take in all major caves in detail and walk around once more to take it all in from a distance. After having visited Dazu and Longmen, I think Yungang has a good mix of the features of those two. I'm still not fed up with the Buddhist rock carvings and looking forward to visit Chinese Buddhist rock art site number 4: the Mogao Caves.

More photos can be found in the Picture Gallery

Reviews

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I was there a month ago, took a six hour train ride from Beijing, which seems to be the only way there. This site is much earlier than Dazu, and the carving are more animalistic and less "Chinese". The first cave the entrance sign leads you to is Cave number 6, truly magnificent, 10+ meter high walls covered with statues, with the center Buddah reaching to the roof of the cave. It is all "indoors", carved and painted with no natural lighting, makes you wonder how it was all designed and planned. My mistake was visiting in late November when the temperature plunged to about minus 12 Celsius, and then it became real fun looking for a cab on the dark, cold road. If you are in the city of Datong anyway, go visit the hanging temple at Mt. Heng, built on a cliff on stilts from the same vitage as the Yungang grottos.

Paul Tanner (UK):

My 4th and final review of Buddhist caves/grottos on the UNESCO list in China has reached Yungang near Datong (ref reviews of Mogao, Longmen and Dazu).

This too was visited by me as early as 1978. However for some reason or another it has registered less in my mind than Longmen, visited just a few days earlier. Perhaps the novelty of looking at Buddhist statues had worn off or perhaps I was still recovering from having, earlier that morning, visited the “Anti-Nuclear Tunnels” at a cake factory in Datong! There we had been told that Mao Tse Tung had said in his teachings on preparation for war and natural disasters “Dig tunnels deep, stock greens (vegetables?) everywhere and never seek hegemony” (there is no answer to that!). So the 335 workers in the factory had spent 4 years working in their spare time without payment to dig 1500 metres of tunnel. These they showed us with understandable pride. They had created kitchens, dormitories, meeting rooms and a “cleaning room” for nuclear, chemical and biological agents - and still had plans for more!! Somehow the futility of this human endeavour cast a shadow on the results, albeit more beautiful, resulting from effort, but possibly equally futile, spent carving out and painting over 50000 Buddha statues in nearby cliffs at Yungang!! There our guide had told us that the temples were the result of the “Exploiting classes of former rulers who used Buddhism to imprison people’s minds” - but this seemed to apply similarly to what had been going on at the Cake Factory in relation to the Communist leaders!

Nevertheless I did note in my diary that the temple had “magnificent wall paintings and statues” (photo) – but you will have to decide yourself whether the sight of thousands of Buddha statues is worth the c 7hr trip out to Datong from Beijing! At that time Datong was a very grimy industrial city and the following day we were treated to a trip down a coal mine. Coincidentally “The Economist” of May 13 2005 contains a review of present day Datong. It appears that the very same coal mine we visited 27 years ago has started taking tourists as visitors in the hope of tapping into the large numbers who go to see Yungang!

If you do go please try to find out what has happed to the tunnels at the cake factory. Perhaps they too should be inscribed on the UNESCO list as they could be said to meet eg criteria ci, ciii and civ!! There are certainly many less worthy/amazing structures on the list.

Date posted: June 2005

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