Survey on the Thousand-Buddha Cliff Stone-carved Sculptures in Huozhou,Shanxi
The Thousand-Buddha Cliff stone-carved sculptures are on the east bank of the Fen River,about 8 kilometers southwest of Huozhou City,Shanxi Province.It was announced as a Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the Level of a City in 1993.Before 2018,only two places of inscriptions can be seen on the Thousand-Buddha Cliff.From 2018 to 2019,many well-preserved stone-carved sculptures were revealed through the official project of Huozhou City to dredge the waterway of Fen River and clean up silts in front of the cliff,including 78 niches with sculptures and 11 places of inscriptions.Sculptures and inscriptions showed that the construction of the Thousand-Buddha Cliff began in the 11th year of the Kaiyuan Era in the Tang Dynasty(723)and continued to carve more during the Tang's Tianbao,Changqing,and Huichang eras until the middle of the Ming Dynasty.The sculptures are mainly styled in a Buddha with two Bodhisattvas,standing Medicine Buddhas,and standing Bodhisattvas;they also have a few individual seated Buddhas and a Buddha with two Bodhisattvas and two disciples.Influenced by carved sculptures in the Chang'an area,Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang,Tianlongshan Grottoes in Taiyuan,and the Tantric style,it formed the artistic characteristics of folk Buddhist sculptures in southern Shanxi from the prosperous to the middle and late Tang Dynasty.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
