It was surprising to see Buddha in China. Well, to see so much Buddha shall we say. We thought most of China’s cultural and religious art had been destroyed by the cultural revolution, but instead we found a good bit still existed, especially in far flung areas like Dunhuang in Western China. Of course the sites were damaged and looted, but as this statue from Datong shows, there was still plenty in tact to see.
There are three major movements of Buddhist art, each with it’s own distinct style: Southern (Theravada countries), Eastern (China) and Northern (Indo-Tibetan). This statue is of the Eastern style, but in Dunhuang we were able to see distinct examples of all three- an interesting historical and anthropological perspective.
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IF YOU GO: Datong is about 4-5 hours by fast train from Beijing. Besides the caves, Datong is also home to the hanging monestary, a cool side trip into the countryside. Both can be done in one day, we negotiated a fare from the city to the monastery– the taxi drivers at the caves wanted ridiculous fares! The other types of Buddhist art, Southern and Northern, can be seen for celebrations of Sri Lanka holidays or on display in northern India/Western Tibet.
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