Host
Camila Arnold
Podcast Content
The region is known for its Buddhist statues and frescoes that adorn the caves, and is best known for the "Buddhist Grottoes," known as the Mogao Grottoes, which are part of the Great Wall of China, the world's most famous tourist attraction. Hailed as the "glittering pearls" that adorned the Silk Road, they are one of the region's most popular tourist attractions and perhaps the most famous grotto in China.
The Mogao Caves, also known as the Qianfodong Cave of a Thousand Buddhas, reflect the history of this ancient Silk Road city. They are on a hill called Ming sha shan, which was dug into the cliffs south of these cities. The Mogao Grottoes or the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or China's Great Wall are also located in Dungguang City, the capital of Yunnan Province, China's second largest province.
Dunhuang was also a centre of Buddhism and for thousands of years, beginning in the 4th century AD, Buddhist monks in and around Dungguang have carved an extensive series of grottoes and shrines. The first cave was founded by a Buddhist monk in 366 AD and made it a centre of Buddhist learning, attracting large numbers of pilgrims to the city.
In 366, a monk named Leig Tsung, who had been walking along the Great Silk Road, saw a flash of light, in which thousands of Buddhas came out of their caves. In Mogao Caves, Buddha is generally the central component and is surrounded by other deities and celestial companions. A special feature of the Mogao Caves is that almost all of them are painted with colourful frescoes with Buddhist motifs.
Dunhuang means "agranda" and is also called Shazhou, and the city is located in a charming desert known as the Singing Sand Mountains. It was also an ancient site of Buddhist religious activities and a garrison city that protected the region from the garrison cities of the Great Silk Road and foreign invaders.
The first Buddhist caves in the Dunhuang area were excavated in 366AD, and Buddhism became the country's main religion. The Sui and Tang Dynasty, China was reunited and Buddhism was re-established as the official religion of China, with Buddhism as the main religion.
While Confucianism was maintained for a little longer by the weak imperial government in the south, the non-Han nomadic tribes who had brought the north under their control adopted the teachings of Buddhism that had arrived in China from India in the first century AD. Many priests who had traveled to China to obtain Buddhist teachings stopped in Dunhuang, and eventually a sizable Buddhist community developed there. The earliest Buddhist monks who came to Japan from China in the first centuries AD also came from the West, as did the earliest Buddhists from South Asia.
This suggests that there was a foreign trade community, and it was these traders who traveled to Dunhuang from the surrounding region. When we think of Dunhuiang today, we usually think of Buddhist shrines, many of which contain remarkably well-preserved religious art. Culture fans visit the Dun Huang Caves to admire their magnificent Buddhist country and the rich cultural heritage of the region.
The 735 caves of Mogao are surrounded by the Great Wall of China, one of the largest and oldest monuments in the world. The Mogiao Caves are particularly known for their unique architectural features, which were found hidden in sealed caves. In 1987, the Mogato Caves were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and are managed by a state institution called the Dunhuang Research Academy.
The latter was impressed by an official of Tibetan descent who oversaw the construction of the Great Wall of China and the construction of a Buddhist monastery in Mogao. He became known as the Bodhisatta of Dunhuang and was organized as a monk in the monastery, as well as an expert on Buddhism and Buddhism in general. The text is a highly respected Buddhist sutra and is now in the collections of the British Library.
Dunhuang is located in the Hexi Corridor in northwest China and borders the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It is also on the border between Tibet and Xinjiang, the Uighur Autonomous Region, and borders on all sides the Hexi Corridor in northwest China.
Mingsha Mountain is widespread and one encounters one of the most representative desert landscapes of the Gobi, which stretches far into the distance. There are singing sand dunes, climbing, mountain biking, hiking, fishing, camping and many other activities in Dunhuang. Enjoy these joyful desert activities and meet up with friends and family at one of China's most popular tourist attractions, Dun Huang National Park, which stretches for long stretches over most of its representatives of the Goba Desert landscape.