Ask a Question
Gaochang District, Turpan, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
One of the largest Buddhist grottoes in Xinjiang.
Bezeklik Caves, also known as the Bizaklik Thousand-Buddha Caves (柏孜克里克千佛洞), is located in a gorgeous valley of the Flaming Mountains. Located on the back of the Flame Mountain, about 10 kilometers away from the Flame Mountain Scenic Area, Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave used to be the royal temple of Gaochang Kingdom. Bezeklik Thousand-Buddha Cave Site is located in the Flame Mountain Canyon about 40 kilometers northeast of Turpan City, which is as famous as the Qiuci Grottoes, Dunhuang Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes, Longmen Grottoes and Ajanta Grottoes in India. It is a royal temple in the Uighur period in Gaochang and a treasure of Buddhist grottoes in the world.
There were 83 caves in the Bezeklik Thousand-Buddha Cave. Among the 57 existing caves, 40 of them have murals. After time passing by, religious conflicts and the destruction of cultural relics thieves, the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave has lost its glory thousands of years ago. However, the murals with a total area of 1,200 square meters are still preserved, and the rest Buddha statues are gorgeous and exquisite, and the remaining murals are rich in content and colorful, which is still a large-scale treasure house of culture and art.
There are 83 caves in Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave, which are divided into three floors and distributed in valleys. The top floor is the Buddhist pagoda area. Most of them are destroyed or no longer existed, but there are still several sites of the Buddhist pagodas. The middle floor under the stupa is the caves group, that is, the Buddhist temple where monks and believers used to worship. It is the main area of the Bezekilk Thousand-Buddha Cave, and all the caves visited by people are located on this floor. The lowest floor is the living area of monks, with scattered monk rooms and two caves, that is, the Buddhist caves where eminent monks are buried. More interestingly, in the living area, archaeologists also found an ancient toilet.
The most amazing thing about Bezeklik Thousand-Buddha Cave is the magnificent and gorgeous murals. Its painting style can be said to be unique among all existing Buddhist murals, and it is the most remarkable feature of Bezeklik Thousand-Buddha Cave murals.
The so-called Bezeklik is just the name used by Uyghur now, which means a house with pictures and a colorful house with carvings. From this name, it is not difficult to find that the local people in later generations have no idea of the official name of the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave, but simply called it a house with colorful murals characterized by colorful murals in the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave.
According to archaeological confirmation, Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave was built in the 5th to 6th century AD. In the Tang Dynasty, the wooden valley where Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave was located was called Ningrong Valley, so Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave was called Ningrong Temple or Ningrong Cave Temple.
Although Bezeklik Thousand-Buddha Cave has a variety of murals, there is no doubt that the most impressive and amazing murals are still the murals in Cave 20 of Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave. However, for many ordinary tourists, they are not only shocked by the spectacular and exquisite murals, but also find that there are a lot of flying saucer-like floating objects in these murals, which are similar to the UFO. So that many UFO lovers think that the floating objects on the murals are UFO in the eyes of the ancient people. Some people even wrote special articles, thinking that these large-scale UFOs are the ironclad evidence of the existence of alien civilizations and their gaze on the earth.
Most of the murals we can see now with complete pictures, bright colors, gorgeous and magnificent pictures are from Cave 20, and because of their almost perfect preservation, most of the research on murals is also concentrated in Cave 20. The reason why Cave 20 in Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave was well-preserved was that it was completely buried by quicksand before the arrival of cultural relics thieves.
There is a fixed pattern in the composition of the murals of the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave, that is, the center of the picture is a large standing Buddha, with related figures painted on its both sides. And the lower figure facing the Buddha in the middle is the protagonist of the story, that is, a previous Sakyamuni. In the upper left and right corners, buildings(a place for practicing and preaching) will be painted according to the content. The main content of the picture is represented by the figures on both sides of the Buddha and the Buddha, their actions and props. Murals are drawn on the whole wall in turn, each showing a theme, and the pictures are separated by vertical stripes.
Because the height of the murals occupies a whole wall, they are usually about 3.25 meters in height, 1.9 meters to 2.8 meters in width, or even more than 3 meters. The main Buddha in the middle of the picture is very tall, usually more than 2 meters in height, accounting for one-third of the picture, which is very prominent. However, the caves are small, if you watch the pictures of the Buddhas closely in front of the murals, you will feel that the statue is long and the head is small, which is very disharmonious. Because of this, the statue of Buddhas and other persons are all with a big head and a strong body, which not only makes people feel the powerful shock of the characters in the narrow passage, but also feels harmonious and solemn.
The best time to visit Bezekilk Thousand Buddha Caves is spring and autumn. Turpan is a desert basin, and summer in Turpan is extremely hot, which exceeds 40℃. Spring and autumn is suitable for sightseeing in Turpan with pleasant temperatures. And winter in Turpan is cold and windy.
If you visit Turpan in summer, it is recommended that you visit Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves in the morning and afternoon because it is really hot here at noon.
Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves is about 40 kilometers from Turpan, and you can take taxi to the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves from Turpan.
We are member of
Follow us on
