The Grottos on Maiji Mountain lie 45 kilometers to the southeast of Tianshui City, Gansu Province.
 |
The mountain peak conspicuously rises from the ground, just like a wheat pile, that is why the local people call it Maiji Mountain (Mai means wheat, Ji means pile up). The Grottos on Maiji Mountain are one of the four most famous grottoes in China, and has enjoyed a good reputation of the Oriental Museum of Sculptures for a long time. There are 194 extant niches, which house more than 7,200 big or small clay sculptures and stone statues, and 1,300 square meters of frescoes. Because Maiji Mountain is made up of soft sandstones and it is difficult to carve on the sandstones, clay sculptures became the method widely employed here.
The grottos were first built during the Later Qin Period (384-417), widely sculpted during the reigns of Emperor Mingyuan and Emperor Taiwu in the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), and got some development after the first year (477) of the Taihe reign of Emperor Xiaowen. After the death of Yi Fu, the Queen of Emperor Wendi of the Western Wei Dynasty (535-557), she was buried the niches carved on the Maiji cliff. During the reign of the Baoding and Tianhe in the Northern Zhou Dynasty (557-581), Li Yunxin, the command-in-chief of the Qin Prefecture, built the Pavilions of Seven Buddha for his deceased father. In the first year of the Renshou reign, Emperor Wendi of the Sui Dynasty (581-618) ordered to build a dagoba in Maiji Mountain. With the continuous sculpture and enlargement through the Tang, Five Dynasties, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, it has gradually developed into one of the most famous grotto groups in China. About in the 22nd year (734) of the Kaiyuan reign during the Tang Dynasty, the middle part of the grottoes in Maiji Mountain was destroyed in a violent earthquake. The grotto group is divided into two parts, the east and the west. Now there are 54 extant caves in the east part and 140 caves in the west part.
(Source: chinaculture.org)
