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Western Jin Dynasty

Chinese ancient architecture and grottoes from the Western Jin Dynasty period: 1 entries, including Kizil Thousand-Buddha Caves, and more.

001 Grottoes Kizil Thousand-Buddha Caves Researchers date the earliest excavation of Kizil to the end of the third century CE, yet no stele bearing a direct date survives. Buddhist imagery from India, Gandhāra, and the Iranian plateau reached Kucha along the Silk Road and was painted onto the cave walls; Xuanzang's westward journey and Wukong's return east with Sanskrit scriptures made Kucha a way-station where monks and texts met in passing. More than a thousand years later the Huijiang Tongzhi still records that there were “several hundred caves,” only by then the five-colored buddhas on the walls had grown “blurred and peeling.” Western Jin Dynasty · Xinjiang · Kizil Township, Baicheng (Bay) County, Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

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