Rib Attendant Bodhisattva Yungang Grottoes Early Northern Wei Dynasty
In 220 AD, Cao Pi usurped the Han Dynasty, the Eastern Han Dynasty collapsed, and China entered the Three Kingdoms Era.
From the Three Kingdoms to the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, a total of 361 years, these three and a half centuries of China's land of war and chaos, the number of disasters, the days of peace, the time of war.
During this period, religious architecture developed by leaps and bounds, typical of which were various grottoes.
All four major grottoes in China were excavated during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and have been repaired and added in later generations.
Offerings to bodhisattvas Yungang Grottoes In the middle of the Northern Wei Dynasty
The arched door of the first cave and the central pillar façade (south side) of the Buddha shrine Gongxian Grottoes of Northern Wei
Jiaozu Bodhisattva (formerly Yungang Grottoes Cave 15) Northern Wei, Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA
Flying Pipa Relief Northern Wei Stone Sculpture 40 cm high Yungang Grottoes
The earliest construction was the Dunhuang Grottoes, which were excavated in the ninth year of Yonghe in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (353 AD), in which Wang Xizhi called on friends and qushui in Lanting, Shaoxing, Zhejiang, and wrote the famous "Orchid Pavilion Collection Sequence" throughout the ages.
More than 30 years later, the Later Qin regime excavated the grottoes in Tianshui, Gansu, for the Maijishan Grottoes; at the beginning of the founding of the Northern Wei Tuoba clan, the Yungang Grottoes were excavated in Datong, and after Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital to Luoyang, the Longmen Grottoes were excavated at the southern foot of the new capital.
These four grottoes became the most direct evidence of the worship and belief in Buddhism in that era.
Buddha shrine and painted sculptures The west wall of Cave 249 of Mogao Caves
Mogao Cave Cave Cave 148 Cave Mural Medicine Man Transformation
Many people have preconceived notions that grottoes are carved mountains as rooms, carved Buddha statues, painted murals, belong to the category of sculpture and fine arts, and have nothing to do with architecture.
This is not the case, Dunhuang's nine-storey high-rise building is a wooden structure, with cornices and angles, magnificent; the murals of Cave 148 of Mogao Caves reflect the style of large temple building groups in the Tang Dynasty, and we can clearly see that the main hall mostly uses the roof of the temple, and the auxiliary hall uses the top of the mountain, which can see the hierarchy of the building.
The mural painting of Cave 359 of Mogao Caves reflects the image of the attic architecture of the Middle And Tang Dynasties: hexagonal spire, small snouted beasts on the tiles, two doors and four windows, corridors plus guardrails, and a base with a waist of the Sumire seat. It is very close to the pavilions common today.
In addition, the interior of the grotto often sees the slope roof, bucket, beams and columns of imitation wood structures, although these are stone components, but also faithfully reflect the style of wood structures of that era.
On the east side of the first cave, the Gongxian Grottoes of Gong county are in northern Wei
In addition to the grottoes, stupas also developed during this period.
The stupa, also known as the "pagoda", its name is derived from the Indian Sanskrit word Stupa (窣堵波), which is also translated as "floating tu", so we have a saying that we have today that is known to women and children called "saving a life is better than creating a seven-level floating tu".
The two Buddhas sit side by side in the Yungang Grottoes in the middle of the Northern Wei Dynasty
The Buddhist temples of ancient India were originally centered on stupas, and other buildings surrounded the stupas. After Buddhism spread to China, the original temple pattern continued this tradition. It was only after the Sui and Tang dynasties that the Daxiong Treasure Hall dedicated to Shakyamuni Buddha gradually replaced the center of the pagoda and became the most critical building of the temple.
The earliest surviving pagoda on the mainland is the Songyue Temple Pagoda in Dengfeng, Henan, which was built in the 4th year of Zhengguang of the Northern Wei Dynasty (523 AD), more than 1400 years ago.
Songyue Temple Pagoda is a brick eaves pagoda with a dodecagonal shape (the only case in China), with a height of 39.8 meters and an outer diameter of 10.6 meters on the ground floor.
Songyue Temple Pagoda in Dengfeng, Henan
The first tower is particularly tall, divided into two sections with a stacked flat seat, and the four fronts open the doors that run through the upper and lower sections.
The remaining eight sides of the lower section are plain flat bricks and are not decorated. The upper section is the most concentrated place in the decoration of the entire tower, decorating the pot door, lion, and fire bead weeping lotus. The tower brakes are carved from stone blocks.
The brake seat is a huge lotus petal composed of a Sumire seat, on which the Meru seat supports a shuttle-shaped seven-fold phase wheel, and the brake top is a huge orb.
The appearance of the Songyue Temple Pagoda is symmetrical and beautiful, and the overall outline is gentle parabolic, and it is precisely because of its scientific and reasonable design and rigorous construction that it has been preserved to this day, and has survived natural and man-made disasters such as earthquakes and wars.
Because of the patronage of the Buddha of the Dynasties and Dynasties, many of the grottoes and pagodas of the Southern and Northern Dynasties period have been preserved and have become our precious historical wealth.
However, the capital planning and palace architecture during the Southern and Northern Dynasties periods were not so lucky, because of the frequent wars and wars, we can no longer see any miyagi ruins from the Southern and Northern Dynasties period today.
Here we should mention a famous master architect: Jiang Shaoyou, the chief designer of Luoyang, the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Jiang Shaoyou, a native of Le'an Bochang (present-day Boxing, Shandong), was a famous architect, calligrapher, painter and sculptor of the Northern Wei Dynasty, who was famous for his versatility and worldwide fame.
When Jiang Shaoyou was a teenager, as a slave of the Liu Song Dynasty, he was captured by the Northern Wei regime of the Xianbei tribe and served in Pingcheng (present-day Datong), and because of his talent, he was appreciated by Empress Wenming and Emperor Xiaowen, and became a minor official in the imperial court. Emperor Xiaowen was bent on sinicizing the reform and removing the old system of humility, and Jiang Shaoyou firmly sided with the emperor, formulating a style of clothing for him and implementing it throughout the country.
Shanxi Datong Yungang Grottoes
The twentieth cave of the Yungang Grottoes in Datong, Shanxi
In 495, Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital of Northern Wei from Pingcheng to Luoyang, and Jiang Shaoyou imitated the traditional culture of the Central Plains and built a new capital of Northern Wei. With the efforts of Jiang Shaoyou, Qiu Mulingliang, Li Chong, and others, the new capital of Luoyang in Northern Wei not only transformed the old city of Luoyang of Han Wei, but also built a new outer city, which was magnificent and magnificent, with a neat layout, and the grand and neat first city of The Eastern Wei Dynasty, the Southern City of Northern Qi, and the Chang'an City of Sui and Tang Dynasties, and occupied an important position in the history of the development of China's capital.
Jiang Shaoyou also presided over the construction of the Jinglun Heavenly Palace, which "does not hear the sound of chickens and dogs barking", the white platform with a height of more than 20 zhang, and the nine-story pagoda with a height of 1,000 feet.
In 501 AD, the general Jiang Shaoyou died, and in order to send his condolences, the imperial court posthumously honored him as the general of Long Jun and the history of Qingzhou Thorn, with the title of "quality".
Jiang Shaoyou's tomb is also difficult to find today.
However, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the four generations of Song Qi Liang And Chen were preserved because of the partial annan, and there are still mausoleums preserved, and there are currently 13 imperial tombs with relics to examine, 3 Chen and Song Emperor tombs in Nanjing, and 5 Qi Emperor Mausoleums and 2 Liang Emperor Mausoleums in Danyang.
Today, only some stone statues, stone pillars and stone stele remain. It is worth mentioning the stone carving of the Tomb of Xiao Jing in the Southern Dynasty, and the stone statue of the tomb "Ward off evil spirits" has become the logo of Nanjing Because of its tall and majestic posture, ethereal posture, and the image of the tiger standing on the dragon disk.
In addition, there are two other points to see on the Shinto stone pillar of Xiao Jing's tomb: the first is that the pillar is engraved with 23 characters of "Liang Gu Shi Zhongfu General Kaifu Yi and The Third Division Wu Pingzhong Marquis Xiao Gongzhi Shinto", this special script is called "Anti-Left Book", there are only two places in China, and there is a stone pillar on the east side of the Jianling Shinto of Danyang Liang Wen Emperor Xiao Shunzhi.
Another point of view of the Shinto stone pillar of Xiaojing Tomb is the shape of the column, which is different from our common cylinder, the column body of this pillar is covered with wavy grooves, which is very similar to today's Roman column, and it is speculated that it is the architectural crystallization of foreign exchanges at that time.
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