Western Thousand Buddha Caves

A manuscript from the Library Cave, dating to the Five Dynasties and now at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, documents the early history of the site (P 5034): according to the Domain Record of Shazhou Dudu Prefecture – Shouchang County, "60 li east of the county is a very old inscription that says "Han Dynasty… made a small Buddha niche; the common people gradually built more".^[3][6][7] Since Shouchang County, modern Nanhu Village, is the location of the Yangguan Pass along the Hexi Corridor, it is understood that this is a reference to the origins of the Western Thousand Buddha Caves.^[3]

The decorated caves are in three main sections: Caves 1–19 at the west end of the cliff, approximately one kilometre from the modern reservoir; Cave 20 in the middle of the site, near the second floodgate; and Caves 21 and 22 at the eastern end of the cliff.^[3] Most of the sculptures were restored in a different style during the Qing dynasty and the Republic of China.^[3] The caves at the western end of the site have had aluminium doors and glass partitions installed more recently with the intention of mitigating the environmental causes of deterioration.^[3] Some of the paintings at the far east end of the site, distant from the custodians' lodgings, have been detached and remounted in a cave at Mogao.^[3] The ruined state of the main Buddha image in Northern Wei Cave 7 enables the construction techniques to be seen: layers of earthen render over an armature of branches and reeds.^[8] The loss of upper paint layers also reveals the linear grid used to set out the design of the Thousand Buddhas on the cave walls.^[9]

The twenty-two caves are dated as follows, based largely on the style of the paintings and their accompanying inscriptions:^[10]