Frescos on the Frontier

The Monk Xuanzang is known to almost all Chinese. As one of the key characters in the classic Ming dynasty adventure story A Journey to the West, he features in everything from advertisements to blockbuster movies. 

 

But the real Xuanzang was a Tang dynasty scholar who embarked on a 16 year expedition to retrieve sanskrit scriptures from India. On his return to China he passed through Dunhuang, a border town at the mouth of the Silk Road. The monk prayed in Buddhist temple-caves dug into a cliff face just outside the city, a place called Mogao. At the time, the area was flourishing with unprecedented spiritual and artistic activity. Each “grotto” was adorned with exquisite Buddhist frescos and sculptures that alluded to the fine artistry of the Tang period. 

 

Xuanzang left behind several hundred sacred scrolls before returning to the capital Chang’an to spend the rest of his days translating the remaining scriptures. Soon his exploits would be incorporated into Mogao art, notably in Cave 204, where a mural depicts the monk’s epic pilgrimage.

Over 1,000 years later an adventurer from a very different place would arrive in Dunhuang. Aurel Stein, a Hungarian born British archeologist had far more pragmatic motivations for straying so far from home. He was in search of fabled Silk Road treasures. 

 

Stein arrived in a frigid and neglected Dunhuang in early 1907 after almost a year roaming the desert, lured by hearsay of a cachet of ancient manuscripts. Beyond the soaring dune sea that surrounds Dunhuang, he eventually came upon the rocky hills of legend. There in a cliff face, Stein discovered the most remarkable collection of ancient art surviving anywhere in the region – the Mogao Grottos.

When Stein set his eyes on Mogao he quickly understood the significance of his find. 

 

“I could not doubt for a moment that the best of these frescoes belonged to the times of the Tang dynasty,” he later wrote. 

 

However, a Daoist monk named Abbot Wang was the self-appointed guardian of the caves and was reluctant to permit this prying foreigner from even inspecting the grottos, never mind departing with any of the treasures housed within. 

 

Stein was an artful operator and sized Wang up as someone who could be manipulated. When Stein mentioned Xuanzang, whose exploits both men admired, the ice began to melt. Eventually Wang showed Stein the scrolls he’d uncovered in Cave 16, some of which bore translations of those Xuanzang had brought from India. Stein seized the moment by proposing to return the scrolls to their sacred home in India. Instead, this precious bounty found its way to the British Museum, where it remains to this day.

 

Other foreigners followed Stein’s lead, making off with Mogao treasures until outraged Chinese authorities put a end to the free-for-all in the late 1920s. The foreign actions remain controversial, but what they succeeded in doing was putting long forgotten Dunhuang back on the map and inspiring new generations of Chinese scholars to restore and record the wonders of Mogao. 

 

My journey to Dunhuang over a century after Stein was via the comfort of an airplane from Xi’an. I was heading to a reinvigorated city now prospering as a tourist destination. Yet despite the modern transport infrastructure and amenities, the tour of this obscure desert oasis still offers something akin to Stein’s experience, as each historic site alludes to a different chapter in China’s long history.

One of our first stops was the sacred Sanwei Mountain.

 

“I can’t go on,” says our driver, “you’ll have to travel by foot.” 

 

A hilly landscape of rock stood before my photographer and I. We followed a winding path, past statues depicting the principle characters from A Journey to the West, until we came upon the entrance gate to the Sanwei Mountain Scenic Area. 

 

Within the scenic area we found a spattering of temples, stupas, and religious sites including a giant Buddha statue. Much of Sanwei’s real heritage has been lost to history or reconstructed by the Dunhuang Sun Tourist Group, distinctly devoid of the fabled artistry of the Tang. Yet the significance of Sanwei Mountain cannot be underestimated, as it was here Dunhuang’s – and by proxy Mogao’s – story truly began when in 366AD a monk named Yuezun had a vision of a thousand Buddhas. Yuezun went on to found the Mogao Grottos in the cliff face located just opposite Sanwei. 

 

The small settlement of Sanwei had in fact been renamed Dunhuang, meaning Blazing Beacon, during the early Han dynasty when authorities established a garrison town aimed at overseeing Silk Road trade and protecting China from the Xiongnu – barbarian nomads that periodically raided the empire. This story is told in another desolate locale. 

 

Driving west of Dunhuang we eventually come upon a sandy ridge where 20 beacons protrude the wilderness. These outcroppings delineate what remains of the Han Great Wall, which stretched between the principle trade passes, the Jade Gate and Sun Gate. 

 

A two-thousand-year-old office building still stands at the Jade Gate. Known as the Small Fangpan Castle, it is testament to the reach and sophistication of the Han bureaucracy. 

 

“During the Han Dynasty, traders, envoys and soldiers would have their documentation processed here, just like in modern customs offices,” our local guide explains as we explore the ruin. 

 

One can actually experience what it would have been like to depart China for the ominous “Western Regions”, as the lands beyond heaven’s dominion were known. At the Sun Gate a reconstructed Han fort offers tourists the chance to don imperial garb and purchase a bamboo permit, something akin to an ancient passport. This might sound a bit touristy, but when you step out of the gate and look out along the hostile wastes beyond, you can understand why ancient Chinese poets imagined this to be the end of the world. Only gold and silver might motivate you to move onwards, and it was the distant empires of antiquity, and their appetite for Chinese products like silk, that necessitated such heroic journeys.

 

For over a thousand years, a patchwork of trails traversed 4,000 miles of the most inhospitable regions on earth, connecting the empires of the Orient with those in the West. It was the greatest human highway in history, requiring intermediaries from different cultures and countries to cooperate in the name of commerce. 

 

The iconic camel-trains, some numbering over a hundred beasts, not only endured the worst nature could throw at them as they negotiated such deserts as the dreaded Taklamakan. Traders also confronted bandits and warring tribes in the savage lands of Central Asia where civilisation had only a tenuous hold. 

 

Dunhuang’s location at the mouth of the Silk Road turned it from being a simple Han garrison town into a lively market place and flourishing creative epicentre. For it was not just produce that travelled the Silk Road, but ideas. Buddhism entered China via the Silk Road, and by the time of the Sui Dynasty, the gentle Indian faith was as close as China would ever be to having a state religion. 

 

This is evident in the meditation cells founded long before by Yuezun in the cliff face at Mogao. Over time, countless unnamed monks forged and decorated new caves. By the Tang dynasty, which promptly followed the Sui, the art was considered an exquisite exhibition of the imperial splendour of China itself, and sponsored by rulers such as Empress Wu Zetian.

 

Today the Mogao Grottos are UNESCO heritage sites and the principle tourist draw to Dunhuang. To experience them, one first views two short films at the neighbouring theatre dome. The first film is a high octane, glossy drama depicting life in the ancient garrison town. The second is a spectacular visual experience that takes two to three thousand high-definition images of the murals in each cave and merges them into a 3D film. 

 

At the foot of the grottos there is a museum, which tells a deeper story of the caves significance. There is a rich exhibition of relics unearthed at the site including Persian silver coins, Christian scripture and Tang bone dice, all alluding to how cosmopolitan Dunhuang had been in its heyday. 

 

Yet nothing quite compares with experiencing the grottos first hand. Due to conservation efforts, a day ticket buys entrance to just eight caves selected at random by your guide. Each dynasty from the Han until the Yuan exhibits its own unique vein alluding to the fashions of the period. Some caves are remarkably preserved, while others have been damaged through erosion or neglect. 

 

There are number of special caves to look out for, in particular Cave 96, the iconic nationalist-era facade of which adorns all Dunhuang postcards. 

 

“This is one of the most famous caves in Mogao,” explains our informative guide Lucy. “The Big Buddha is a thirty metre sitting Maitreya statue. The cave construction was commissioned by Empress Wu Zetian, who believed herself to be the Buddha of the future.”