The Thousand-Buddha Cliff () is a historical site of mostly

Tang Dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

rock carvings in central

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in His ...

Province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. Along a cliff face of 63 meters length, over 210 statues and 43 inscriptions have been reported. Most of the statues were carved during 618–684.

Location

The Thousand-Buddha Cliff is located near Liubu Village, in

Licheng District Licheng may refer to the following locations: *Licheng County (), of Changzhi, Shanxi *Licheng District, Jinan (), Shandong *Licheng District, Putian (), Fujian *Licheng District, Quanzhou (), Fujian *Licheng Subdistrict, Xianyou County (), Fujian * ...

, under the administration of

Jinan Jinan (), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanization of Chinese, romanized as Tsinan, is the Capital (political), capital of Shandong province in East China, Eastern China. With a population of 9.2 million, it is the second-largest city i ...

City, about 33 kilometres southeast of the city of Jinan proper and eight kilometres east of Zhonggong Town. It stands immediately to the west of the site of the former Shentong Temple (, meaning "Supernatural Power" Temple), which is now in ruins. The cliff is oriented in the north–south direction.

History

The first Buddha sculpture is said to have been carved into the cliff by a 70-year-old monk named Sha Dong in the year 619 AD. After a hiatus of 25 years, two more Buddhist sculptures were added by another old monk named Ming De. Because Ming De felt his life was coming to an end at the time, he also donated money towards the carving of additional statues. However, in the year 657 AD he was still alive and continued to carve more statues and inscriptions into the rock face. Because the Tang Dynasty's official policy during the time was to encourage conversion to

Taoism Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Ta ...

, the carving of Buddhist statues implied a political risk. Hence, the inscriptions left by Sha Dong and Ming De point out that the sole purpose of the statues was prayer and not the expression of political opinions. Despite these difficulties, the work of carving the sculptures into the cliff was continued by other Buddhists and eventually the Thousand-Buddha Cliff became the largest collection of Buddhist cliff statues in Shandong. Besides the Buddhist sculptures, there are also secular statues depicting nobility such as relatives of the emperor, government officials, and famous monks. Among those are statues of Princess Nanping (), the daughter of

Emperor Taizong of Tang Emperor Taizong of Tang (28January 59810July 649), previously Prince of Qin, personal name Li Shimin, was the second emperor of the Tang dynasty of China, ruling from 626 to 649. He is traditionally regarded as a co-founder of the dynasty ...

and her husband Liu Xuanyi.

References

External links

Online article
{{in lang, en Landforms of Shandong Tang dynasty art Cliffs of China Tourist attractions in Jinan Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Shandong Chinese Buddhist grottoes Rock art in China

Location

History

See also

References

External links