001 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 Kizil Township, Baicheng (Bay) County, Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
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002 Bingling Grottoes The Bingling Temple Grottoes are carved into the cliff face on the north bank of the Yellow River in Yongjing County, Linxia, Gansu. The Tibetan word “Bingling” means “where one hundred thousand Maitreya Buddhas dwell.” The Shuijing Zhu records many stone chambers in the cliffs here, called “Tangshu Caves” (ghost caves) by the Qiang people. In Cave 169 an ink inscription reading “first year of Jianhong” (Western Qin, 420 CE) was discovered, one of the earliest known dated inscriptions in Chinese grottoes. After the Liujiaxia Reservoir filled in 1968, the site can only be reached by boat. Sixteen Kingdoms-Western Qin Yongjing County, Linxia City, Gansu
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003 Xiangtangshan Grottoes The Xiangtangshan Grottoes lie at the northern and southern ends of Mount Gu in Fengfeng Mining District, Handan—two sets of mortuary caves carved by the imperial family and powerful ministers of Eastern Wei and Northern Qi. The Zizhi Tongjian records that Gao Huan was secretly interred beside the Buddha's head in the great cave at North Xiangtangshan; the Xu Gaoseng Zhuan states that the great cave image backs onto the tomb of Emperor Wenxuan. South Xiangtangshan, according to the Stele of the Fushan Grottoes, was opened in the first year of Tiantong by the monk Huiyi and Prince Gao Anahong of Huaiyin. Eastern Wei Fengfeng Mining District, Handan, Hebei Province
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