Chinese Buddhism: Yungang Grottoes (photos)

John Roberts (photographer); Wisdom Quarterly; China.org.cn/English

Chinese tourists marveling at China's rich Buddhist heritage (Johntrathome/Flickr).

We spent a day in and around Datong City, Shanxi Province. The highlight was the time spent at the Yungang Grottoes.

This UNESCO World Heritage Site has "252 grottoes with more than 51,000 Buddha statues and statuettes," according to their Wikipedia entry, having been carved between 465 and 525 AD.

Serious efforts are now underway to slow 1,500 years of weathering. We came to really appreciate the problems China has with dust storms blowing in from Mongolia as a result of desertification this day. There was dust everywhere. The wind picked up midday. And the sky had that slight tint of orange seen on pictures of Beijing's dust storms. It was very cold. More



Buddha revealed in a collapsed cave, Yungang Grottoes, Shanxi Province, China (Johntrathome/Flickr)